Story [Top Gun] Seeing a Trailer

Title: Seeing a Trailer
Author: daenabenjen42
Fandom: Top Gun
Disclaimer: Nope. All the nope. To quote BrightFeather on this occasion: "I borrowed them, hugged them, squeezed them, called them George, and put them back like a good girl."
Characters: Sam "Merlin" Wells, Ron "Slider" Kerner, Rick "Hollywood" Neven, Leonard "Wolfman" Wolfe, Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, Tom "Iceman" Kazansky
Notes: Everything I know about Aircraft Carriers comes from J.A.G and Wikipedia entries.
Totally giving an Angst Warning, because gosh did this make me emotional... and then I was stuck at the first paragraph, because DETAILS MATTER, and THEN I ignored the plot bunnies in F-14's until I couldn't ignore them anymore. (And honestly... "Writing a fic for that movie that my sister loves" is something I never thought I'd say.) Enjoy.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~​

It was only later, after the madness of the rescue that was the Layton and the de-brief that followed, that Merlin could finally ask what he'd been wanting to, spurred further on by both Maverick and Ice having had combined adrenaline crashes.

Merlin yawned and watched as Slider, for the forth time that evening, again started playing Solitaire with a deck of cards on the deck of their quarters while keeping watch on Ice as he slept. Silder looked as tired as he felt, but his face had an odd, grim set to it. As if his mind was on more than the events of the day. He glanced up at Hollywood, seated up on the bunk above Ice, reading a book while his own RIO was perched on a chair near the head of the bunk that Maverick had crashed out on, reading a newspaper. "So... one of you should explain, preferably before I get written up for yelling at the CAG and demanding answers of him. What happened? Where..." Here Merlin motioned to Maverick, who was dead to the world he was so deeply asleep. "...is Goose? Did he stay stateside?"

At first, there was no answer from the three of them, then Slider looked up at him from the cards with haunted eyes. "Accident. Two weeks ago. Today was Mav's first time back in a cockpit since... was it four or five days after, Wolf?"

Wolfman didn't even look up from the newspaper. "Five, I think. Sundown's ears might still be ringing from when he pushed too hard and Mav yelled at him." He took a deep breath, then let it out slowly, and kept on reading the newspaper.

Merlin stared at him, startled at those details. What kind of accident was this? "What? Mav never yells. Gets yelled at plenty, usually by both our Captains, but... details. Now."

Slider nodded and returned to his game of Solitare. "Right. Training accident, engine flameout from getting caught in our jet wash during hop 31. Goose... hit the canopy during ejection because of the flat spin. He... you can guess, Sam. I thought someone told you already."

Merlin's gaze shifted to Maverick, eyes wide in understanding. That explained a lot, including the uncharacteristic disengaging right after they themselves had gotten caught in the jet wash from the MiGs. Then he noticed something metallic in Mav's hand and he reached over to carefully open the other man's fingers to get a better look. Dog tags. Squinting, he read them and wasn't entirely surprised. "Ron?"

"Hmmm?"

"Goose's dog tags."

Now Wolfman, whose name was actually Leonard, Merlin had learned, looked up with a frown. "Really?"

"Really." Carefully, Merlin put the tags back in Maverick's hand and closed his fingers around them. Had he had them in the middle of everything, too? Probably. He glanced at Slider, who was still focusing on the cards in front of him. "That doesn't surprise you."

"No," Slider muttered, his tone husky from emotion that wasn't showing on his face. "The Coasties said they had trouble getting him to let go." He took a deep breath and let it out again. "What I can't figure out is how he went from quitting to actually showing up to Graduation. Still bugs me, and I didn't dare ask him."

"Charlie," Wolfman answered, his tone dry. "Though afterwards, she didn't think she'd convinced him. She said she found him at the Airport bar, nursing an ice water." Merlin turned and looked at him funny. "I know, right? That's basically what I said, man. 'Ice water? What?'"

The oddness of that, the ice water, instead of something hard... Merlin could not suppress a snort of laughter, which was cut short by Mav letting out a sleepy, wordless sob, and that was when he figured out why Wolfman was seated where he was with that newspaper.

Wolfman set the newspaper down and reached out to shake Maverick awake. "Hey! Mav!"

Mav's eyes shot open and he stared up at him, breathing hard, and for a moment Merlin wondered if he was having a panic attack on top of everything else. "Wolf?"

"Yeah."

"Bad. Ocean cold."

Wolfman nodded. "Yes it was. I'm okay, though. So is Rick. Wood?"

From the top bunk, Hollywood waved at him. "Right here, Mav."

Mav squinted up at him, then looked at Merlin, then at Wolfman again. "I... want Carole. And Bradley. And..."

Wolfman nodded. "Understandable, and right now I want them here, too. Back to sleep with you."

"Can't."

Merlin winced internally at the emotion in that one word, but Wolfman seemed to take it in stride.

"Tell me that when you can form complete sentences, hmmm?"

Mav looked like he wanted to argue, which was something Merlin would have sold tickets for: Maverick arguing with anyone while incredibly tired. Going by what he was beginning to understand, it had been an incredibly traumatic two weeks... when had he slept last, if he was this tired now? He watched as Mav's eyelids slid shut again and his breathing evened out.

"I wonder if we could get Carole on the phone tomorrow," Slider mused, then reached over and jostled Ice's arm, or while they had been focused on Maverick, Ice had started twitching and mumbling in his sleep. "Tom!"

"I'm up!" Ice mumbled, then stared at him. "What?"

"Nightmares. Yours."

Ice blinked sleepily at him, then looked at Merlin, and beyond him to Maverick. "Sorry."

"For what? Too much has happened, not enough time to really process anything." Slider motioned with a card to Hollywood and Wolfman. "They did get shot down, after all."

"Yeah," Hollywood spoke up, his tone rueful as he returned to his book. "That fifth MiG was a really big surprise. I almost want to tell Viper about that sneaky maneuver, so he can pull it on the unsuspecting."

Ice stared up at the bottom of the top bunk, frowning. "There is that. What time is it, anyway?"

Merlin glanced at his watch. "Twenty-Hundred. Also, you're more verbal than Mav right now."

"I saw him nap at least once on the transport," Ice muttered as he leaned up on his elbow to peer over at him, and saw the chain of something in Maverick's hand. "But other than that, I have no idea when he slept last before that. What's in his hand? Looks like metal."

"Because it is metal," Merlin explained. "Goose's dog tags, to be exact. I'm still trying to wrap my brain around a jet wash-caused training accident that no one, not even our CAG, told me about before now. He simply told me that a pilot was coming in that needed a RIO, but not who. And then I found out who needed a RIO and there was no time to ask why."

Ice winced. "Jardian actually didn't tell you?"

"No, he didn't."

Slider sighed. "He would have deserved you yelling at him in frustration there, Sam. In fact, I would have loved to see you do it."

"And I still would have gotten written up for it, no matter the circumstances." Merlin saw the slight quirk of a smile on Ice's lips and shook his head. "Back to sleep with you, too."

"And you?"

"I'm planning on commandeering the cards for Go Fish."

"No you're not," Slider told him. "Find your own focus task."

Eventually, Merlin convinced Slider into a rousing game of Go Fish, and Ice drifted off back to sleep.

 

A/N: I invited it, I might as well continue, right? Right. Onward. (If Bradley Bradshaw was born in 1982, does this make him four or five, depending on what part of the year it is? Erring on the side of caution...)


Forty-ish Hours ago... more or less...


It was a small group of that stood on the tarmac at Naval Air Station Miramar, saying goodbye to five of their number that were departing as ordered for a crisis situation half a world away. Wolfman stood at his pilot's shoulder, Ice and Slider on his other side, as they watched Maverick say goodbye to Carole Bradshaw while holding her son, Bradley, who was crying and didn't want to let go.

Maverick looked for all the world like he wanted to stay right here on the tarmac and see THEM off instead, but finally he met Wolf's steady gaze, took a deep breath, and turned his full attention to the five year old in his arms. "Bradley-"

"Don't want you go!" Bradley yelled, voice shrill, and they all winced.

Maverick sighed. "I know you don't, kiddo. I know. Look at me, huh?"

"Don't want you go," Bradley said again, hands clinging to the name patch on Mav's flight suit. "Don't go."

Mav stared at him, then hugged him tighter. "I have to go. Orders."

"Orders stupid."

Maverick heard several snorts of laughter at that and tried to smile. "Yes. The orders are stupid, kiddo. But they are still orders, and I still have to go. I'll be back."

Bradley blinked up at him. "Back?"

"Yes, Bradley. I'll be back. Okay?" His gaze shifted to Carole for support, and she moved in and hugged them both. They stood there like that for long minutes before Ice cleared his throat and Carole pried her son away from Maverick, taking the name patch with him. "Uh..."

Carole was reminded of the last time he'd done that, only to his father on deployment, and shook her head in sad amusement. "I keep forgetting those are Velcro. Give it back to him, Bradley."

"No," Bradley said and tried to hide it.

Carol sighed. "Bradley..."

"Want Uncle Mav. Stay."

"He has to go. People need help out there. He'll be back. Give him the patch, all right?"

Bradley stared at the name patch in his name, then reluctantly handed it to Maverick. "People help?"

"Yeah, Brad-Brad."

"Come back?"

Maverick tried to smile, but failed miserably. "Yes. Carole, I..."

Carole looked beyond him to Ice, Slider, Hollywood, and Wolfman. "I'm trusting you all to come home safely, you hear?"

Slider found his voice first, nodded. "Yes, Ma'am."

"And I know it's a tall order, but do keep Pete out of trouble," then she nudged Mav with her free hand. "I mean that. Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

Maverick stared at her, at how casual she was being, trying to give him a semblance of normal in the middle of this mess. "Carole?" She simply smiled knowingly, or tried to. It didn't entirely reach her eyes. Then he nodded.

"We'll be here. Go."

A firm hand landed on his shoulder, and Maverick startled at the contact. "Come on, Mav. Transport's loading."

He glanced over his shoulder at Ice's impassive, but not entirely unemotional, face, then nodded and reached out to ruffle Bradley's hair one last time, and Carole stepped back to join Commander Metcalf and Lieutenant Commander Heatherly.


Twenty-seven or so hours after that...


Twenty-seven hours after seeing them off, Carole Bradshaw received a message brought to her by Commander Metcalf, who stayed while she read it.

"Arrived at ship, air conditioning still broken. Miss you both."
"Mitchell is somehow adorable when napping on a transport. Who knew?"
"Got to go to Hawaii. Only saw tarmac at Pearl. Again."
"Why do ration packs ALWAYS taste like chicken, even when it's supposed to be Mac&Cheese?"
"It was raining on Guam. Still only saw the tarmac. Miss Miramar already."
-Mav, Ice, Hollywood, Slider, Wolfman

"My sincere condolences, Mrs. Bradshaw. He was a good man."
-CDR Tom "Stinger" Jardian, C.A.G.

She frowned, finding the name of the CAG familiar from her husband's letters, then looked at Commander Metcalf. "Did... did... is that the same ship they were on before? Why is the air conditioning broken?"

Viper nodded, then smirked. "Because it's always broken on that carrier. And yes."

"Always?" The thought of that made her laugh and she wondered if that had been Maverick's intention. Probably it was.

The message she had Viper send back: "The tarmac at Pearl and Guam is better than NOT getting to go to either of those places. Glad Mav took a nap. Yes, he's adorable. Still laughing at about the permanently broken air conditioning. Ration packs? Huh? Tell CDR Jardian thank you for me."

 

A/N: What with all the comment reading I did, per the military guys in the YT comment section: apparently the USS Enterprise's aircon was notorious for not working properly.
I was informed that I WASN'T DONE with something. This isn't the first time that's happened, nor will it likely be the last. (Also, apparently the boards algorithm for language dislikes excrement.)
It bears repeating: ANGST WARNING

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~​

"Some mistakes I guess we never stop paying for."
-Roy Hobbs, The Natural (1984)​

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~​

It was much later, after Merlin had managed to convince Slider to get on his own bunk and sleep when he was clearly tired himself. He was now seated in the chair that Wolfman had vacated when he'd relieved him from nightmare duty. Merlin glanced up at the bunk where Wolf and Hollywood were now sleeping, wondering if they'd co-slept like that before. It sure seemed like they had.

Merlin checked first on Mav, who was mumbling unintelligibly in his sleep but seemed otherwise fine for the moment, and then looked over at Ice, and then yawned and returned his attention to the book Hollywood had been reading, which turned out to be The Natural by Bernard Malamud. It made sense, of course... when recovering from something bad, read about baseball.

The hatch to their quarters opened as quietly as a door on an aircraft carrier could, and Marlin glanced up to find Commander Jardian standing there, a medical corpsman at his shoulder. "Sir?"

"...fire or clear..." Maverick muttered, and Stinger frowned at him, while Merlin turned his full attention to the sleeping man, ready to wake him again. "...come on, Ice. Fire or clear..." He twitched, stilled. "...come off high and right... holy ****..." Mav twitched again. "Can't... can't... control... you have to punch us out... eject! Eject!" And then he screamed and Merlin wasted no time in attempting to wake him, aware that their CO was watching.

"Mav!" Merlin shook his shoulder and was very nearly punched when Maverick came to, hyperventilating, with Nick's call sign on his lips. Maverick, breathing heavily, stared up at him with unfocused eyes so full of pain that Merlin wanted to pull him into a hug, but didn't dare. "Hey. You with us?"

Slider, apparently a light sleeper, came awake right then to confusion, only to watch, dumbfounded as Mav stared to sob into his pillow and ignore them all. "What the hell?"

"Do the words 'fire or clear' sound familiar to you?" Merlin asked, Jardian's presence nearly forgotten.

Slider paused, noticing who else was in here. "Commander?"

"At ease, Lieutenant," Jardian told him. "Answer the question."

"The training accident, sir," Slider admitted, voice strained as he moved to jump down from his bunk, but the Corpsman glared at him, so he froze and stayed where he was.

Jardian nodded, then tapped Merlin on the shoulder. "Has that been happening all evening?"

"On and off, sir," Merlin told him without looking up. The training accident... no wonder. "Come on, Mav. Come back to us now." Maverick startled him by grabbing one of his hands and looking straight at him, using it like a lifeline. "Hey there."

Mav's breathing slowed down and he looked at him with recognition, blinking in confusion. "Sam?"

"Right here, Pete. Right here." Merlin blinked when Mav's breathing evened out and he was asleep again, a pained expression on his face. He sat back, but Mav was still holding his hand tightly. That answered the question of how tired he was, right there.

"Lieutenants?" Jardian prompted, and nodded to Corpsman at his side who had watched the entire incident with a clinical expression. "This is Corpsman Turner. I'm relieving you, Wells, so you can get some sleep." He glanced at Slider, who was looking back at him with incredulity. "Commander Metcalf advised me in writing when you arrived that this might happen."

"Oh." Slider followed Jardian's gaze to Hollywood and Wolfman. "They were too jittery to sleep alone, sir."

"Took some convincing to get them to try sleeping," Merlin added as worked to get Maverick to let go of his hand and stood up to look at the corpsman, who motioned for the book in his other hand that he'd forgotten he was still holding.

"I'll bet it did," Jardian muttered.

"Don't lose Wood's place. Do you like baseball, Corpsman?"

"As much as anyone," Turner told him, and then promptly sat down in the chair that Merlin had vacated, book in hand. "And I will leave the bookmarked page as it is." He nodded to Maverick. "History, please."

Merlin paused, glanced at Jardian, who nodded for him to spill. "He crashed an hour or so after debrief, and he's been either dead to the world, or we have to wake him out of nightmares ever since. Doesn't make much sense for a minute or so, then goes right back to sleep." Turner nodded, then looked pointedly at Slider and the other three occupants of the room. "Trouble sleeping," pointing to Hollywood and Wolfman. "Sleeping, but also having nightmares." Ice. "Was talked into sleeping after lots of Solitaire and more than one round of Go Fish, but Mav woke him up." Slider.

"Yeah," Slider concurred, and looked over at Ice. "Actually, I'm surprised that Mav didn't also wake him."

Merlin met Jardian's steady gaze. "Ice said he saw Mav sleep at least once on the transport, but wasn't sure when he'd slept last before that. And then there were the MiGs, and the Jet Wash. Apparently again, sir."

Jardian nodded. "Which is why he and you were back up, Wells. I wasn't going to send him out if I didn't have to."

Merlin's respect for the Commander grew a little right then. He'd known upon seeing Maverick again that something was off, but not the what. There had been no time to ask questions, and then the briefing, where he'd seen the active concern radiating off of Ice to the point where he'd almost been able to taste it, and Wolfman, for whatever reason, hadn't let Mav out of his sight until he'd had to. All of that made sense now, but... "Oh."

"None of you are on duty tomorrow," Jardian told him, then turned to look at Turner.

"Oh, I've got this, sir. Go get some shuteye before I report you for exhaustion," Turner said, and Jardian nodded and left the bunk room without another word.

"We didn't need a Corpsman," Slider said, and Turner looked at him funny. "What?"

"Commander Jardian begged to differ," Turner told him as Merlin sat down heavily on his own bunk beneath Slider. "What I just witnessed from this one," he motioned to Maverick. "Tells me that he should still have been on Medical Leave following the accident two weeks ago. But if the Navy made sense in it's orders, I'd be a millionaire."

"You're really going to stand watch?" Merlin wondered, and found himself yawning again despite himself.

"Really. You had a wild day, too."

Merlin snorted in agreement, then motioned to Maverick. "Flies like a maniac."

"So I gather."

"But he's our maniac."

Turner met Slider's incredulous gaze with a smirk. "True."

Eventually, Merlin and Slider relaxed enough to drift off to sleep themselves.

 

A/N: It's hilarious that I ended up on the jazz to write... just not actually for my story that is STILL stuck on Bespin that has been stuck there for a year. (I will be making jokes about that for a while longer, I think.)
And then the plot bunnies laughed at me, for I was trying for SIMPLE. I don't get to do SIMPLE. Right. Okay... (When in doubt about a health thing, ask the Mayo Clinic.)

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~​

Merlin woke to Corpsman Turner in his personal space, hand on his forehead. He stared at him, unsure of what or why the man seemed to be taking his temperature. "Uh... doc?"

"Something I needed to check," Turner told him, removing his hand. "Normal. Good."

"Huh?"

Turner sighed, and moved so he could see that Maverick was still asleep. "You were in the cockpit with him yesterday, Lieutenant. I needed to check you over, because he's warm to the touch."

Merlin considered that, then noticed Ice was missing, as were the two on the upper bunk. He could hear Slider mumbling above him, and motioned to the top bunk. "And him?"

"Also not hot to the touch." Turner stood and moved back to the chair he'd been seated in when Merlin had finally gone to sleep. "This doesn't surprise me, by the way."

"It doesn't?"

"No." Turner motioned to Maverick, then began holding up fingers. "Weeks of ACM training, training accident, loss of his friend and RIO, an inquiry, no medical leave, stress, the incident yesterday, twenty hours travel to get here from San Diego. Eventually, one's body is going to say 'no, no more' and I think that's what's going on here. I had to wake him earlier, and you're right. He doesn't make much sense right now."

"We're missing three," Merlin observed.

Tuner nodded. "They got woken up by Mitchell an hour ago, I made them go and see to their own needs." He paused. "Thought I was going to have to pull rank on Wolfe for a minute, to get him to go." His gaze shifted upwards. "Good morning, Lieutenant Kerner."

Slider huffed as he carefully got down off the bunk. "Call me Ron, Corpsman."

Turner smiled. "Will do."

Slider peered at Maverick. "How is he still sleeping?"

"Stress reaction didn't give him a choice," Turner explained. "Go tend to your own needs, both of you. If you argue that, I actually will pull rank and make it an order."

Ice entered right then with a covered food tray, which Turner accepted, and behind him was Wolfman with a cup and several bottles of 7-UP from the Mess. "You wanted all this?"

Turner nodded and set the tray on the small desk in the corner, accepted both the glass and the two bottles. "If he's not going to really wake up for very long, then we are going to have to get him up and get him to at least drink something, if not eat." Turner glanced at Merlin and Slider. "Go before I make it an order, gentlemen. Come back with some ice packs."

~*~*~*~*~*~​

Ice watched as Wolfman prodded Mav awake and got him to sit up, propped against the wall behind the bunk. Maverick's eyes were unfocused, tired, as he stared first at Wolfman, then at Turner. "Mav?"

"Who is this guy?" The words were slurred and Ice winced internally at how tired he sounded. Then he started to nod off, and Wolf prodded him again. "What?"

"You need to drink something for us," Wolfman told him, accepting the glass from Turner. "Alright?"

"Tired, Wolf."

"I know you are, Mav. Drink, please." He helped Maverick drink half the glass, and Turner motioned to get him drink the rest. "Little more, okay?" The glass empty, Wolfman handed it back to Turner, who then handed him a banana.

Mav started to nod off again, and Ice moved to sit on his other side. "Oh no you don't. Not until you've eaten something." Ice peeled the banana open and shoved it into Maverick's right hand... for the other one was still holding onto dog tags.

"Not hungry," Maverick mumbled, staring at the piece of fruit in his hand.

"Eat it anyway," Ice told him firmly. He was surprised when Maverick did indeed start eating it, and then handed the peel off when done. And then he fell asleep on Ice's shoulder. "Corpsman?"

"I expect him to sleep another ten hours, at least," Turner said, tone implacable. "What's he like when he's himself?"

"Truthfully?"

"Yes."

"A pain in the ass."

Turner chuckled. "I look forward to that, then."

Ice studied the Corpsman, then looked down at the sleeping pilot leaning heavily on him. Actually, so did he.

 

Willard and Simkin Are Not Still On Standby

A/N: In which Hollywood brushes up on Fighter Combat: Tactics and Maneuvers (1985)... which, funnily enough, one can buy on Amazon.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~​

They'd been sitting like that for a few minutes, Ice looking down at Mav sleeping, now curled into his side, when he finally looked up at Turner. "This is odd."

Wolfman snorted, laughing. "Everything that's happened the last two weeks, and THIS is the odd thing? Really?"

Mav mumbled something in his sleep, and Ice glanced down at him again. Then he spoke more clearly, and Ice frowned at him. "Talk to me, Goose," in a tone they'd not heard out of him in weeks. Two weeks, to be exact.

Turner moved to shake Maverick on the knee, but Ice shook his head. "Every time he starts talking like that, it leads to him needing to be woken up."

"No, I want to hear this one," Ice said, intrigued at the mumbled mention of Cougar and if he'd heard something, tone excited, if muddled by sleep. They listened as first it was one MiG, and then two, the second one was chased off... and then fun was had and Maverick laughed in his sleep. "Oh. So that's what this is."

"Oh?" Turner asked.

"They only said they'd been inverted over a MiG in a 4G dive," Wolfman explained. "Not the details of the event." He frowned at the concerned tone Mav's voice had taken on all of a sudden, right when it sounded like he was about to land.

"Goose, Cougar's in trouble... We're going after Cougar." A minute went by, and then: "Any of you boys seen an aircraft carrier around here?" Followed by him coaching Cougar, on his wing, all the way back.

Ice prodded Maverick's shoulder before Turner could try again. "Mav, wake up."

"Mmmph," Mav muttered, then opened his eyes and met Turner's concerned gaze, frowning. "Is Cougar okay, Doc?"

Turner nodded. "Yes, Lieutenant. He's fine. Sleeping it off."

"Good," Maverick said, and nodded off again.

Ice stared at Turner, dumbfounded. "He didn't know you before."

"He," Turner pointed out. "Is exhausted in the middle of a flashback you wanted to hear, and I've seen him and his fellow pilots and RIOs any number of times in Medical. He might not remember my name, but in that flashback, he recognizes me. A little. And it was true, Cortell was sleeping it off."

Ice nodded, satisfied with that answer. He had a thing or two to clarify with Merlin later, however.

"Kazansky?" When Ice looked at him again, Turner nodded to Maverick. "Don't ever take advantage of a flashback again for your own curiosity. You do, and I will personally kick you out and tell Jardian why. You get one, and only one, warning. Understood?"

Ice could feel Wolfman's glare without looking at him, and nodded. "Understood."

"Glad to hear it." Turner looked at Wolfman, noted where he was seated on the bunk, and pointed to another. "Get up and help me rearrange him, Wolfe."

Ice was left with Maverick using him as a pillow, and almost demanded that Turner, who had gone back to reading with a satisfied smirk, give the book to him.

~*~*~*~*~*~​

Merlin wasn't surprised to find Hollywood in the Mess, nursing a cup of coffee while reading a book. No, what surprised him were two visibly tired aviators making their way thru breakfast and watching Hollywood, but pretending not to be. He sat down with his own tray and found that that was not a regular book. "Is that an aviation text book?"

Hollywood nodded. "I hate getting surprised from behind."

Merlin eyed the text book, then glanced over at Willard and Simkin. After a moment or two of thought, he beckoned them over. "You two were on standby yesterday, right?"

Willard nodded. "We were supposed to launch after Maverick, but then there was a catapult malfunction."

Hollywood barely glanced up as the two pilots joined them. "I'll bet that went over real well in CIC." He bit his lip, but kept his eyes on the book. "I couldn't see much from the water after we landed, but... Merlin? Did you two have a MiG on your tail and also nearly run into another?"

Merlin nodded. "And crossed into a jet wash."

"I have to ask, because I wondered all night while we were on patrol," Simkin put in, peering at Merlin and then at Hollywood who seemed intent on not looking up. "Why Iceman and his RIO were yelling as if they'd expected the panic attack and the disengage. I've spent a fair amount of time around Maverick while deployed, and that was really abnormal."

"Because we did expect it," Hollywood answered, voice tight with emotion. "Especially in a situation like that, with an added near-collision. Training accident two weeks ago. Flat spin."

Willard winced in sympathy. "Oh. I have questions, but now probably isn't the right time."

"They're probably the same ones that Sam had last night," Hollywood offered, then pointed to the maneuver he'd been studying. "Huh. I wonder if that works with a rolling reversal?"

Simkin craned his neck to get a better look. "Maybe. Why?"

"Because reversing on a hard cross is too fast to go to guns immediately?" Silence answered him and Hollywood finally looked up to find the three of them staring back at him, and Slider behind Merlin with a tray full of food, smirking at him. "Ah. You remember."

"Yes, and it was hilarious to hear him flirt with us all in the room," Silder said, making the other three jump at the sound of his voice as he joined them. "Would love to see Mav try it, though. You know, when he's not a walking bruise with a headache."

"Flirting?" Merlin asked. "While talking about maneuvers?"

Slider chuckled. "Civilian instructor. Blonde. Smart as a whip. Call sign Charlie."

"Oh." Merlin paused. "You know, suddenly it makes sense why Wolf sent her after Mav. And really, Ron: walking bruise with a headache?"

Slider shared a glance with Hollywood, then turned his gaze back to Merlin. "You know that ejection is basically the same as a high-speed car accident, Sam, but with rockets under our seats. That was two weeks ago, and there's what happened yesterday. Did you notice that the sunglasses stayed on, even in here last night for dinner? I'm amazed that he didn't crash while still wearing them."

Hollywood nodded. "And he still has bruises, if you know where to look." He noticed Willard and Simkin were visibly puzzled, and then his eyes dropped to the squadron patches both were wearing and his eyes widened in realization. "Merlin?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm going to feel stupid for asking this, but were Mav and Goose stationed here before they were sent to Miramar?" At Merlin's nod, he sighed. "Oh. No wonder there was compartmentalization. Everybody liked him." Hollywood caught Slider's eye, saw him sigh noiselessly. "Right. Ron..."

"Eventually, I'll be having a chat with Tom about being an idiot," Slider finally said, tone neutral, then looked at Willard and Simkin. "I can't talk about it yet and I watched it. If you have questions like it appears you do, ask Jardian, since it was his decision to say nothing and simply assign Maverick a new RIO without telling Merlin why, either. Tell him I sent you."

Willard nodded slowly, taking that in. "And Maverick? Where is he this morning?"

"Sleeping," Merlin told him. "Corpsman called it an understandable stress reaction, given, among other things: no medical leave following the ejection two weeks ago."

Simkin stood and lifted his empty tray. "Come on. Guess we have to report to the Commander after all."

Hollywood leaned closer to Slider after they'd left earshot. "I should feel bad about sending them to ask their Commander about it, but I don't. I'd sick those two on Viper and Jester if I could."

Slider had to bite his cheek to keep from laughing.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~​

When Merlin returned with the requested ice packs, it was to the surprising and amusing sight of Maverick using Ice's upper thighs as a pillow while the man sat there with flat expression directed at the Corpsman who was pointedly ignoring him. "So..."

"He ate, he drank," Ice reported, glanced down. "And he's been quieter since he fell asleep again on me. I'm kind of afraid to move now."

"I'd prefer you didn't," Turner told him as he put the book down and looked at Merlin. "Especially since if left alone, he wakes up screaming. Ah, you brought the ice packs. Good."

"You really think that would happen again?" Ice wondered, only to wince when Turner turned back to stare at him. "Right. Of course you do."

"You're the one who wanted to listen to the Flashback, Lieutenant," Turner reminded him as he accepted the ice packs from Merlin and proceeded to lay them on Maverick's shirt-covered skin carefully, even down on his legs. "There. Now I'm satisfied. Wish I'd thought of it sooner."

"Why?" Wolfman wondered.

"Ejecting from a jet like that? Awful." Turner met Ice's gaze. "Was he walking stiffly after?"

Ice nodded. "Yes."

"And how bad is catapulting off the deck when you're not two weeks out from an accident like that?" All three of them winced and Turner nodded. "That is why the ice packs, gentlemen."

Merlin stared at Ice. "What flashback did you want to hear? Why?"

"Because he," Ice nodded down to Mav, "Didn't give me a straight answer about showboating with a MiG when I asked him, before, about who was covering Cougar." He winced under Turner's glare while Merlin spun to open his personal locker. "Don't look at me like that, Doc. Really. I get it."

"Glad you do," Turner said as he sat back down in the chair and picked up The Natural again. He frowned when Merlin came back with a walkman, which was handed off to Ice.

Ice studied the walkman, then looked at Merlin. "What's this?"

"Comms recording from the buzzing incident," Merlin explained, glaring at him. "Showboating? Really? He saved both our lives and got both a commendation and a chewing out for it."

"I know that now, I didn't at the time," Ice replied, then looked at the walkman again. "Why do you have a copy of it?"

"Bert in CIC let me borrow it to study." Merlin's gaze dropped to Maverick, noting how peaceful he seemed. Satisfied, he went and found a book to read from his locker and then joined Wolfman on one of the other bunks where the other RIO was again reading a newspaper. Merlin frowned at it, squinting to read the date... of a week ago. "Why are you reading last week's news?"

"We had no time in Miramar for anything but ACM," Wolfman explained with a shrug. "A week late is better than not at all."

Merlin nodded. That made perfect sense.

 

A/N: I finally learned how to spell Lieutenant without the spell check red-lining me. Small victories.


"You can fish all your life never knowing - it's not fish you're after."
-Tagline for The River Why (Movie)

~*~*~*~*~*~*~​

"Do you have another one of those?" Merlin asked after a minute or so. Wolfman glanced at him, smiled, and handed the newspaper to him. "I didn't mean-"

"I've read it a couple times now, and have three more in my bag," he explained. "Wood also brought several, as well as a text book, his father's favorite novel that Turner is reading, and two other books. Plus, you've been out here for months with not a lot of contact with the world. Read. Passes the time." He stood, looked pointedly at Ice, who was still staring at the walkman in his hand. "Well? If you're not going to listen to it, can I?"

Ice rolled his eyes and put the headphones over his ears and pressed play. He listened for several minutes while Wolfman went and retrieved another newspaper from his locker, and then Ice blinked, startled, and had to turn the tape off. He stared at the walkman again, then met Turner's gaze to find the medic was watching him, an unreadable expression on his face. "I... I..."

Merlin frowned, put the newspaper down, and moved to take the walkman out of Ice's hands, the headphones off his ears. "Talk to me."

"Huh?" Ice blinked again, looked down at Mav, and then looked at Merlin, emotion in his eyes. "Goose."

Merlin nodded. "And?"

Wolfman plucked the walkman out of Merlin's hands and listened to it himself, then stopped the tape. "Oh. I get it. Tom? Take some deep breaths for us, all right?"

"I..." Ice took a deep breath and again looked down at Maverick with wide eyes, and then took another breath and let it out. "Altitude was falling. Mav must have been pinned forward and to the side from the spin, and Goose had to punch them out. I..."

"Deep breaths, Lieutenant," Turner told him, swatting Merlin's arm to make him move and give them space. "And now I'm glad you weren't awake to hear the nightmare of the training accident last night."

Ice took some more deep breaths, then looked at Turner in question. "What?"

"Just so," Turner said pointedly. "And it's normal to feel overwhelmed at reminders of bad things, even if the reminder isn't actually bad. Trauma is relative."

"And like Slider said last night," Wolfman reminded him. "We've had no time for anything since. It hasn't been that long."

"Crap," Mav said sleepily, and Ice looked down at him again, startled at his tone.

"Even Mav agrees," Wolfman said humorously, and Ice looked at him oddly. "Or he's about to have a flashback. Hard to tell."

"..won't recover..."

"Oh," Ice said, and shook Maverick's shoulder. "Mav?"

"Mmph," Mav muttered and came awake, to look up at Ice in sleepy confusion. "World's spinning."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." Mav blinked, shivered. "Ice? Why am I cold?"

"Ice packs," Ice told him, nodding to Turner. "His idea. Seemed to think you needed it. I'm in agreement, Mav. You're warmer than you should be."

"Oh. Want a NATOPS."

"You do? Why?"

"Brush... up." Maverick yawned. "Want answers. Canopy."

Merlin frowned then, knowing that until he could stay awake for longer than minutes at a time, that was the most he was going to be able to explain. "All right, we'll get you a NATOPS manual." Mav smiled and went back to sleep. "Aborted spinning flashback?"

"Sounds about right," Ice agreed. "NATOPS manual?"

"It's the most sense he's made since yesterday at debrief and dinner," Wolfman pointed out and offered the walkman back to Ice. "Want to try again?"

"Later. You listen to 'em. I'd..." Ice paused, blinking again and had to shake his head. "To hear them, like that? It's a lot. I didn't even realize how much I missed Nick until right now. How is that possible?"

"No time," Turner reminded him, and nodded to the pilot sleeping in his lap. "Also, he might have had all of your attention, even if you didn't realize it."

Wolfman stood there for a moment, then spun on his heel and returned to his locker, intent on rooting through it. Finding what he was looking for, he moved to hand a book to Ice, and then sat down again on an open lower bunk. "Sounds about right."

Ice frowned at the paperback book in his hands with a fisherman and a hook on the cover. "Is this about fishing?"

Wolfman smirked. "Yes. It's about your speed right now, and I think I saw an over-parked Winnebago cross your face at least once recently."

"A what?"

"Read, Ice."

"Why do I want to read about fishing?"

Merlin shrugged and joined Wolfman again on the bunk. "We could always get you the NATOPS manual, so you can go over it with Mav when he actually does wake up..."

Ice paused, then opened the book to the first page. "Over-parked Winnebago, huh?"

Wolfman continued to smirk. "Oh yes." He caught Turner's eye, and the man nodded in appreciation. And then he put the headphones on and lost himself in a mission where they'd been buzzed by two MiGs.

 

A/N: (1) I was half-way to a re-write last part at the inclusion of The River Why, which is a 1983 novel about a fishing-obsessed (OBSESSED, I tell you) family and mentions the Vietnam Draft. I was going to not include it, but... you know what? It's funny and abstract, and probably the exact right book for Ice post-flashback of his own, and absolutely is something you might have found at random in a bookstore in 1984/85.
(2) Turner had a very good reason to be cross with Ice about that MiG/Cougar flashback, other than the obvious.


Two weeks ago...


When they arrived at the base hospital after Jester cut them loose, one of the Coasties handed them a scrap of paper with a name and a phone number on it. Hollywood stared at the information for a moment, then looked at the diver still in his diving gear as the other members of the rescue team were preparing for takeoff. "What's this?"

The diver shrugged. "Wish I knew, Lieutenant. Mitchell was repeating that when we landed and I could finally hear him as the ambient noise dropped. Last time I saw something like that, it was a former POW who lost his place in his head and was repeating his service number."

Hollywood winced. "Right. Thank you."

The diver pushed them toward the Base Hospital's doors. "There's probably a phone in there you can use."

They entered the building and Wolfman asked the first nurse he saw for a phone. She directed him to the nurses station, where they explained, and the Head Nurse dialed the number, then handed the receiver to Wolfman. He smiled at her. "Thank you."

Three rings, and then: "Fort Worth CPS, Jenkins speaking... Frank, I can't believe, after so many years of repeated incident reports and complaints filed, that the Tomkins are still allowed to Foster."

Wolfman frowned. Fort Worth? Tomkins? What? "Sir?"

There was a pause on the other end, and then: "Oh, not Frank. Sorry, thought you were a colleague, calling me back about a child placement. How can I help you?"

Wolfman met Hollywood's gaze, confused beyond the telling of it. Why would Maverick be repeating a phone number for a social worker in Fort Worth? "Sir, I was given this number by a Coast Guard diver who got it from one of our aviators, and I'm calling from the Base Hospital at Naval Air Station Miramar. Do you know a Pete Mitchell?"

A heavy sigh. "Yes, I know him. Have since he was eleven. The base hospital, did you say?"

"Yes, Sir. No details yet, as I'm not next of kin, an emergency contact, or our Commanding Officer."

"And your name, son?"

"Wolfman."

A chuckle. "That's a new one. Name, not callsign."

"Leonard Wolfe."

"You a RIO or a pilot?"

"RIO, Sir."

Silence, and then... "All right, if he was repeating my work phone number like I think he was, he's in shock. Tell the nurses to be advised not to leave him alone and if he starts singing Sitting On the Dock of the Bay, just to go with it until he stops. I'm going to need your CO's phone number, to talk to him."

"Yes, sir."

"And where is Bradshaw, if you're calling me instead?"

Wolfman stared at Hollywood for a moment, dumbfounded. Whoever this guy was, he knew details. "Unavailable, sir."

"I'm a civilian case worker, not an officer in the Navy. You don't need to call me Sir."

"Sorry."

"That's all right. Number for your CO?" Wolfman gave Viper's office number to him, and Jenkins thanked him. "Where is your pilot?"

"Right here, listening to me talk to you."

"Call sign?"

"Hollywood."

"Name?"

"Rick Neven."

"Noted." There was another pause, and then he heard a sigh. "I was due to be in Miramar in two weeks for graduation, but... damn."

Wolfman flinched at the sudden emotional inflection. "Mr. Jenkins?"

"Four kids in crisis, Wolfe. Damn it. Thank you, and I will get the details from your Commanding Officer."

"Yes, sir."

"Feel free to call me any time, Wolfe. Your pilot, too."

Wolfman handed the receiver back to the head nurse and told her about the odd mention of the song and the instructions from Mr. Jenkins, and she nodded. Then he looked at Hollywood. "That was really strange. Apparently he's known Maverick since he was eleven."

Hollywood nodded and looked down the hall just in time to see Viper be met by a doctor. He could already tell from Viper's posture and what he could see of the man's face... it wasn't good. Not good at all.


Hours ago...


It was 0330 or so when Turner heard a voice, singing an older song that he didn't recognize at first. The melody of it felt familiar, but he couldn't place why that was, and set the book aside to listen for a few minutes. Before long, it was broken by sniffle sounds, and he paused to look up at the co-sleeping pair. No, not them. Kazansky was also a no, as were the other two. Which left... Mitchell, eyes open but unfocused. Also sniffling as if he'd been crying.

He started singing the song again, and Turner continued to frown, noting that his left hand was open, arm held at an odd angle. Then the melody broke off and Mitchell met his concerned gaze. "Mitchell?" Was he awake? He seemed to be.

"Do I hafta go back to the Tomkins house, Mr. Jenkins?"

Turner froze at the youthful inflection and the wording. Not awake, then. Where ever Mitchell was in his head right now, it wasn't the present. Only question was: how old was he? The sheer youngness in his eyes made him look way younger than twenty-three or twenty-four. A flashback to what, when? "No. No, you don't have to."

"All my stuff is there."

"You let me worry about your things, all right? What happened?"

"Bart... pushed me. Stairs," Mitchell sniffled, still holding his arm at that odd angle. "Arm hurts."

Turner nodded slowly, and then reached out to attempt to palpate, but stopped when Mitchell flinched, eyeing the offending appendage warily. What that reaction told him in one movement was a lot. He didn't want to go back to whatever the Tomkins House was, there had been a bad-sounding incident, and... he didn't want to follow that train of thought.

"Hurts," he repeated.

"How old are you?"

"Twelve," Mitchell answered, then sniffed again. "I want Mom." And then he was singing again, seeming to cling to the song which Turner suddenly realized he'd heard before, now that the words were clearer.

At that, Turner's frown deepened. He knew from the file that he'd gone over with Jardian that both parents had died when this kid was young. Really young. He pulled a small notepad out of a pocket and jotted down the details of the flashback. Maybe it was important to discuss with him later when he was awake for it.

The singing continued for an hour.


Now...


In the Mess, Hollywood glanced up from the textbook and noted that Slider was now staring at his now-empty food tray, a swirl of emotions on his face. Then he noticed Jardian over Slider's shoulder and raised an eyebrow in question at him. Jardian motioned to Slider in a 'make him talk' sort of way, and Hollywood nodded. If the man wanted that, to hear them act as normal as they could manage right now, then he would. "So... something is bothering you. Can't be what passes for oatmeal on this ship, Ron."

For a second or so, it appeared that the Commander wanted to chuckle at his opener. He didn't, though.

Slider didn't look up. "Just thinking. About the jet wash yesterday. I heard Merlin say it, and then suddenly I had a front row seat to Maverick getting control, and was terrified he wouldn't. Again. I probably knew he was going to wide circle before he did."

Hollywood met Jardian's gaze, and the man nodded. Ah, so this was exactly what he wanted to hear. "And he did get control. Of the plane and his emotions."

"Yeah. Just... until I realized he was actually wide circling and heard that whisper to Goose under Merlin yelling at him, I thought we were dead. Ice couldn't dodge forever, couldn't switch to offense because every time he tried, yet another MiG was swarming us, and we couldn't disengage because we were distracting enemy fighters for the Layton." Slider shook his head, then looked up at him. "Everything that's happened lately, and it's the guy Ice was repeatedly getting on the case of, lecturing about teamwork and being dangerous, that comes to our aid when he himself had just had a panic attack. After Ice had tried to talk Jardian out of sending him up at all, even as backup. Badly. What kind of sense does that make?"

"It doesn't," Jardian spoke up and Slider spun to stare at him with wide eyes. "Thank you, Lieutenant Neven."

Hollywood nodded. "Sir."

Slider stared up at him, mortified. "Sir, I didn't know you were standing there. I-"

"You sent Willard and Simkin to me," Jardian reminded him with a frown, and Hollywood had to respect the measured tone of the Commander in this instance. "And I wanted you to vent, to gauge the situation for myself, rather than just taking their word for it. You are not the first aviator or flight officer to need to talk things out, both the bad and the good, and I was reminded last night by a Corpsman of command-level decisions that can go either way." Jardian paused, looked at Hollywood. "I would have preferred not getting an aviator back in pieces, but we work with what we have, as it were."

"He's still sleeping," Hollywood told him, with a shudder. "If we can call it that. If I'd had any idea a week ago how bad it really was, I'd have sat on him, but he didn't come to any of us to talk or for help."

Jardian's frown deepened. "Oh. So the nightmare I saw..."

"Sir," Slider interrupted. "As I keep having to remind them, including Rick here: we've had no time, and it's been two weeks. And, not sure how to tell you this, or even if I should be, but Goose's wife and son saw us off, and Mav looked like he wanted to stay in Miramar when Bradley wouldn't let go of him. If anyone would be having understandable repeated nightmares and flashbacks right now, now that he doesn't have to pretend because he can't anymore... it's Maverick."

Jardian took that in, nodding, and then handed him a slip of paper. "The five of you got a reply from Miramar. Don't make a habit of using confidential communication this way often, Gentlemen."

"Thank you, sir." Slider watched him go, then turned back to look at Hollywood. "You're an ass."

"Was I supposed to defy a direct order from a superior officer to make you talk?"

Slider rolled his eyes good naturedly, then read the message. Then he chuckled. "Ah. I wonder if she'd think he's adorable when he's waking us with nightmares?"

"What?" Slider handed the paper to him and Hollywood read it for himself, and then he laughed. "Probably not. Glad we made her laugh, though, even if it was about the air conditioning. And really... all you could think of was ration pack commentary?"

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~​

An hour later, after Wolfman had flipped the tape in the walkman and listened to the rest of the comms recording, and Turner had removed the ice packs and sent Merlin to take them back to Medical, he was staring at the walkman in his hand and pondering what he'd listened to. There had been two MiGs, all right. But there had been no leaving of wingmen by Maverick. A really odd way of getting rid of the second one, be certain, but no leaving. Then he blinked as soft singing reached his ears.

Wolfman glanced up to find that Turner was staring at the bulkhead over the desk in the corner, chewing on his lower lip in thought. Where was the singing coming from?

"Not again," Turner muttered as he set the book on the desk with the covered food tray and leaned forward to study Maverick's face. Wolfman froze, suddenly realizing where it was coming from. "Not awake."

"Why is he singing?" Ice wondered, glancing down at Mav from the novel he'd been engrossed in.

"Your guess is as good as mine," Turner said after a moment, and sat back again. Wolfman noticed that he made no move to pick up the book he'd been reading again. "Same song as before. Sitting at the Dock of the Bay."

"Oh," Wolfman said, and Turner glanced at him. "Did he also give you a phone number, when he was doing it before?"

"No," Turner answered. "Why?"

"Phone number?" Ice asked, perplexed.

Wolfman nodded. "Right after the accident, he was repeating a phone number and a name. The Coasties gave that to me and Wood, and we called the number. Jenkins," and here Turner looked at him sharply. "Jenkins told me to tell the nurses that if Mav started singing this song, to just go with it until he stopped. He didn't say why."

"And Jenkins is?" Turner asked, prompting him.

"A social services case worker in Fort Worth, has known Mav since he was eleven... also apparently knew Goose, since he was wondering why I was calling him instead." Ice stared at him, and Wolfman shrugged. "That's all I know here. Not to leave him alone and let him sing."

"Well," Ice muttered, looking down at Mav again. "We've got the not leaving him alone part covered. Even if we did let him try quitting first."

"I figured this Jenkins person might have been a case worker," Turner said thoughtfully. "About three-thirty this morning, he thought I was Jenkins. Also asked if he had to the Tomkins house, whoever they are, and that his arm hurt from some kind of incident involving stairs, and that he was twelve. And then he sang this for an hour."

Wolfman paused, for what Jenkins had said off-handedly when he'd answered the phone now made even more sense. He wondered, too, why the Tomkins were still allowed to Foster Parent. The hatch opened, admitting Slider and Hollywood, who paused and then stared at Mav in befuddlement.

"Huh. He really does do that." Hollywood crossed the room to sit next to Wolfman, frowning at the walkman. "What's on that?"

"MiG buzzing incident," Wolfman told him. "Ice couldn't listen to it yet." An offical-looking paper was handed to him, he read the message, then grinned. "Oh, good. Ice, she agrees with you."

"I don't find him adorable right now, Leo."

"Oh, I don't know," Slider said as he sat down on the third open bottom bunk. Ice glared at him. "I think he gets a pass for saving our butts. Don't you?"

"Ask me that when he's not using me for a pillow, Ron."

 

I started reading this a few days ago, but haven't had a chance to respond. You'd think WFH would give you plenty of free time, but Life races in when time opens up, it seems.

Anyway, I am really enjoying this. Look's as if Mav's having a full-fledged nervous breakdown. Dude seriously should be in a hospital stateside somewhere. It's good to see his squadron coming together to keep an eye on him and support him. I suppose they're feeling the loss of Goose too. The call to Jenkins is an intriguing twist. Wonder where this will go?

 

Mistress_Renata: You know, it's really too bad that Jenkins was STUCK in Fort Worth and could only attempt to do anything with phone calls and faxes. It really, really is. As to having of a full-fledged nervous breakdown... no, that's the story that is stuck on Bespin.
For this one: Maverick WAS in a stateside hospital at NAS Miramar. They let him go while displaying classic symptoms of PTSD. And Viper wanted him thrown into a cockpit within DAYS of the accident. He had an emotional breakdown (see above references to quitting after Sundown set him off and he lost his emotional control that he didn't have a very firm grip on to begin with), sure... but right here, this is extreme exhaustion and his body saying "no, no more, we're sleeping" combined with recent trauma for multiple reasons. Also, the sleeping, hypnotic mind is a suggestive one and they're talking around him.
He's got a medic here who is slightly apoplectic in Viper's general direction, BECAUSE this is eleven years after the Fall of Saigon and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a known, classified thing in the DSM manual and has been for six years... because of returning vets from Vietnam.

Thank you, and welcome to "I'm not doing it... still not doing it... you can't make me... all right, fine, I'm writing..." (This was honestly going to be drabbles instead. Only drabbles didn't want to happen. Which is too bad, because the intro was amusing.)

 

A/N: (1) I was literally "does the Enterprise have a photo lab?" (It must, because of the chance of doing low-level flying photography passes.)
(2) Wonky timeline note: the aviator Duke Mitchell was based on, one Randall "Duke" Cunningham, did not enter the Navy until 1967, and the kid in the picture that Maverick has in his wallet shows a kid older than three years old, closer to eight or nine. Also the song mentioned, Sitting on the Dock of the Bay by Otis Redding, was published in 1967. So in order for Mav's parents to have liked it... his father didn't go down in November of '65. November of '68 is far more likely, based on the picture shown.


Weeks ago...


He wanted to be frustrated, to lash out at the subject of his annoyance as Ice had done, but listening to the hushed conversation, Hollywood couldn't keep the anger going. What he heard was self-recrimination and acknowledgement that Maverick did indeed know better. He was still annoyed that he'd been left to fend for himself with no wingman, but... was he angry? No.

Watching Goose get up and smile, he caught the man's eye and nodded. Goose wasn't unaware of the ongoing issues, either, even if verbally they'd been talking about a trophy and points. Right here, now, this was about something different.

He was left, standing there a few feet from Maverick against the wall of the locker room, and watched as he sat down, sighed, and stared at the ceiling. It was a show of vulnerability that gave Hollywood something to think about.

Eventually, he reached over and tapped Mav on the shoulder, and tilted his head in question. Maverick blinked, startled, as if he'd forgotten he wasn't alone, and then shook his head. "Never happening again," he repeated.

Hollywood simply nodded in reply, unsure of what to say.


Now...


The corridor wasn't empty when Merlin returned to their quarters with a bag from medical after returning the ice packs. He'd even managed to find an F-14 NATOPS Manual. He should have been surprised to see Willard and Simkin waiting outside the hatch, talking in hushed voices, but he wasn't. "So..."

"We wanted to check on you," Simkin told him. "And Maverick. All of you, really. And there's these." Simkin handed a thick manilla envelope over. "Pictures."

Merlin frowned at the envelope. "Pictures?"

"What we could find," Willard explained. "Of Nick. Taken on board since deployment. Might even be some of Cougar in there."

Merlin paused, then opened the hatch and peered in. "Slider? Out here a minute."

Slider joined him, nodded to the two aviators. "Hi." Merlin handed the bag and the manual to him, and he frowned. "Right..."

"The bag is for Turner. Mav wanted the manual."

"He's awake?" Willard wondered, and Slider shook his head in the negative.

"No," Merlin explained. "He asked for it when we had to wake him again out of a flashback. Something about the canopy, if that makes any sense right now." And then he dragged both of them into a hug while Slider watched with raised eyebrows. Slider watched them, then decided to give them privacy and ducked back into the bunk room.

"Uh, Sam?" Simkin said after a minute. "Air." The hug actually got tighter, and he caught Willard's gaze over Merlin's head. As one, they returned the hug with equal force until Merlin started to squirm. "All right?"

"I..." Merlin squirmed again and they released him. "Getting there. Thank you. For the pictures, too. You didn't need to do that."

"Yes," Willard told him. "We did. If nothing else, it gave us something to do to feel like we could make this situation a bit better. You know... when Maverick does wake up to be able to appreciate it. And I know how much of a void Cougar left for all of us."

Merlin held up a hand and opened the hatch again to peek, then nodded and opened it wider so they could see in. Ice frowned back at him. "They brought us pictures."

"And we're not staying," Simkin said quickly, peering at Maverick. "Is he singing?"

"Yeah," Slider spoke up. "Social services guy that Wolf spoke to didn't explain that one."

"Social services?" Simkin wondered, looking to Wolfman, who shook his head.

"Still wondering about that," Wolfman said honestly. "At least it's this song and not You've Lost That Loving Feeling." He grinned when Hollywood, Ice, and Slider all snorted in laughter. "See? There's an upside."

The two aviators bid their goodbyes and Merlin closed the hatch behind them, then leaned against it and stared at the envelope in his hands. Then he looked over at Turner, who was examining the contents of the bag with an expression that looked like amusement. "They thought you might need-"

"Oh, I realize that, Wells. Hadn't thought of certain things yet, and I'm glad someone did. Why don't four of you go for a walk and give us fifteen or so minutes? Some things do not need witnessing." He noticed how hopeful Ice looked, and smiled at him. "Oh, no. You're staying. Ron, bring some water bottles back with you."

"We have that," Ice motioned to the 7-Up.

"That isn't for you, and you've eaten a meal," Turner explained patiently as Merlin, Slider, Wolfman, and Hollywood left as requested.

In the hallway, Slider frowned at Merlin. "What was in the bag?"

"Why would Turner be wanting as much privacy for Mav right now as is possible?" Merlin questioned back, and waited while Slider thought about it. "Especially if he'll need to be awake for it and Turner doesn't trust him to successfully navigate to the head?"

Slider paused, realization dawning on his face. "Oh." He glanced at Hollywood and Wolfman. "Gym?"

"Gym," Hollywood confirmed.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~​

When they returned to the bunk room about forty-five minutes later, Merlin was surprised to find Mav sitting up on the far end of his bunk, hugging his knees, and staring at nothing while tears rolled down his cheeks. The oddness of it caused him to stop, and then Wolfman ran into him before pivoting and darting around him. "Should we go for another walk?"

"No," Turner said, tone even, but his posture was anything but calm. "Come in and sit down. This... We figured out why Jenkins would be warning about the singing. Should have taken that seriously."

"Why?" Wolfman asked as they all took their seats on the two open bottom bunks.

"Because I didn't think anything would come of waking him up while he was singing. My mistake, and he was pliable at first, doing exactly what I told him to do..." Turner took a deep breath and turned to study each one of them in turn, then shifted his attention back to the aviator currently huddled almost in a ball on the bunk. "This explanation stays here, Gentlemen. It was years ago for him, but right now, it just happened. Trauma is real, and this... this is a flashback. He would not have normally had it, under normal circumstances, but it is trauma all the same."

"Not understanding yet," Hollywood said softly.

"Pete, come back over here, huh?" Ice prompted, and Mav shook his head violently. "All right. You can stay right there. What's the song, Pete?"

"Mom would listen to it for hours," Mav whispered, and they all winced at how raw he sounded. "Over and over again. Sick of it."

"And what year is it?" Turner asked, causing the four of them to look at him funny. "Pete?"

"Seventy," came the answer and Ice looked to Turner in question.

"Ten," Turner answered, glancing at the rest of them. "And I'm not going to pry the rest of the details from him. Not like this." He reached down and quickly put something in the bag that none of them had noticed had been at his feet.

Hollywood frowned. "So Jenkins met him when he was eleven? That's the next year, and... why 1970?"

"Kid's suggestible, Lieutenant," Turner cautioned, his tone now one of warning. "Also the answer to that is emotionally complicated. I know, because I went over his file with Commander Jardian. I want him out of this flashback state, not to stay in it. Ideas?"

"Yeah," Wolfman said. "Ron, I need the deck of cards. Pete, you know how to play Go Fish?"

"We are not doing that again," Slider muttered as Mav finally looked at Wolfman, and he paused. "Okay. We're doing that."

"Go Fish?"

"Yeah." Wolfman slid to the floor and caught the rubber-banded deck of cards that Slider tossed to him. Then he patted the deck. "Come on, kid. We're playing Go Fish. Wood, Merlin? Join us."

Slowly, Mav joined him on the floor, and Hollywood and Merlin slid off the bunks to the floor. "Doesn't everybody know how to play Go Fish?"

Merlin grinned at Slider, who rolled his eyes at him. "Kid's got you there." Looking at Mav up close as the tears stopped and he rubbed at his cheeks to dry them, he was struck by just how young he seemed.

"All right, so it was an amusing half-hour," Slider admitted. He watched at Merlin grabbed the envelope he'd carried all the way to the shipboard Gym and back, and handed if off to Hollywood, who passed it over to Ice, who frowned at them, but opened it anyway. Then he smiled. "What's in there?"

"Pictures," Merlin answered as Wolfman dealt the cards out four ways. He watched Mav crane his neck to look back at Ice with a frown. "Later, kiddo."

"Are they good?" Mav asked.

Ice shared another glance with Turner, who shook his head. "Yes. Play your game with the guys." He folded the envelope back up and set it aside, then leaned over to Turner, lowered his voice. "Are you sure we can't keep him like that?"

"Would you want to explain a ten year old Pete Mitchell to the CAG?" Turner asked with a snort of laughter, his posture relaxing slightly as two RIOs and an aviator started playing Go Fish with a Pete Mitchell that clearly wasn't quite himself.

"No," Ice muttered and sat back again against the wall. "You've seen this before."

"Not for a while, but yes. It was nerve-wracking then, too." At Ice's questioning expression, Turner shook his head. "Not the time for those kinds of stories, Kazansky."

Ice noticed that Mav was looking back at him again, eyebrows furrowed as if he was confused by something. "Pete?"

"Ka-za-sky?" Mav tried, tripping over the name as if he'd never heard it before, and then Hollywood nudged his knee and pointed to the cards in his hand, redirecting him. "Oh. Threes?"

"Go fish," Hollywood told him, and glanced at Ice with a shrug. "In his defense, it is kind of hard to say right off." Ice simply nodded.

They went through three more card rounds, and then Mav yawned and stared at his cards as if he'd just realized he was holding them. Then he blinked, shook his head, and yawned again. "Why are we playing cards?" He looked up at Hollywood, then Wolfman, then Merlin, who were all watching him with what they thought were neutral expressions. "Uh..."

"Back with us now?" Ice asked, letting out the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding in. Maverick glanced back at him over his shoulder, frowning.

"Was I not, before? Here, I mean."

"No, and we'll tell you tomorrow why that was. For now: how do you feel?"

Mav yawned again. "Tired. Why am I so tired?"

"Now that," Turner said, slight humor in his tone. "That, I have an answer for, Lieutenant. Stress and lots of it, and you should have had medical and bereavement leave. You did not, you're human, and it's natural, normal even, to be tired right now. In fact, since you're up..." Here, Turner lifted the cover on the food tray and then handed the wrapped sandwich to Ice, who handed it to Maverick. "Eat that for me."

Mav eyed him dubiously. "Huh?"

"Eat, Mitchell. It might seem ridiculous, but it really isn't." Mav did eat the sandwich, and then Ice handed him a glass, and he took one sip and then stared at it. "Before you ask why that's not water: if you don't remember right now, because you did ask last you were awake, you've had a bit of a fever. Drink that, please."

"Don't I get a say?"

"You had a say," Hollywood broke in, startling them with how rough with emotion his voice suddenly was. "And you ended up in this state, Mav. It's our turn, you idiot."

Turner paused at that, and peered at Hollywood to find that the expression on his face rivaled his voice tone. "I wouldn't have phrased it quite that way, Lieutenant Neven. Accurate, yes, but... tact."

"Done pretending."

Turner nodded, and took the glass when Mav was done with it. Mav himself was looking from face to face, frowning, before settling on Merlin.

Merlin sighed. "None of us are Nick, and I don't know how to be Nick for you. None of us do, Mav. But we are here, ready to listen when you're ready. To help. You just have to be willing to accept the help... or Rick might sit on you until you let someone in."

"Had an uncle," Hollywood explained, voice still harsh with emotion. "Liver failure from losing himself in the bottle for years after his tour. 'Nam." Mav winced.

"Older brother," Ice volunteered. "Navy SEAL. Was in 'Nam '72 to '74."

"My aunt was, is a nurse," Wolfman added. "Evac hospital '68 to '71. She sees a psychiatrist regularly, but almost never talks about it otherwise. Too hard."

Mav glanced at Turner in question, and the Corpsman shrugged. "I was medical. Saw some dang nasty things that I'm never telling you or anyone else about... and if you catch him in a mood, Stinger has some stories of his own that might curl your hair. Ron?"

Slider sighed. "Mine's odd. A cousin of mine is married to a double amputee whose first wife left him while being repatriated at Balboa, and she was volunteering and hanging onto hope that her brother wasn't lost over there." Ice frowned at him. "Oh, her brother's alive. Nice guy, too. Kiki loves to tell that story because she thinks it's hopeful... and also an important lesson in when not to give a quadriplegic access to a motorized wheelchair."

Turner looked to Merlin, but the RIO simply shook his head, mouthing 'not now.'

"Bogies like fireflies," Mav said suddenly, the bitterness in his voice surprising them, after a minute or two of silence, yawning again, then he looked at Turner. "I get the too hard to discuss part of it, Corpsman. I never would have known what actually happened to my Dad if I hadn't gone to Viper's house to discuss my options and seen the pictures in his living room. He caught me looking." Turner frowned, motioned for him to continue. "State Department cover up and lines on a map. He saved three planes while wounded."

"When did Viper tell you?" Ice asked carefully, tone a mixture of curious and concerned.

"Sunday."

Ice shared a look with Slider, then gruntingly pulled Maverick, who yelped in surprise, back up onto the bunk and into a tight hug. Mav froze at the contact and then melted into his side again and began to cry. If Ice was surprised by the crying, it didn't show on his face.

A couple minutes went by in silence, save for the sound of crying and the far-off sound of a plane being launched off the catapult not-so-far above them, and then Mav was asleep again.

 

A/N: (1) Wait. That SeeBees patch means WHAT? Oh... (And I should just NOT be reading Wikipedia entries. Really. It leads to so many harebrained ideas... and now I'm making fun of the CIA and the State Department during the Cold War. Ha.)
(2) Viper was spared a visit from a Brooklyn Nurse that acts like both my grandmothers. (Of the harebrained ideas I had while getting back into this story after emotion bombing myself, that was not the most outlandish.)


Hours ago...


The knock on the door of the bungalow was unexpected and Carol Bradshaw paused in folding the laundry, casting a glance her son was curled up, asleep on a chair with a blanket drawn over him. She sighed and trudged to the door, opening it to find LCDR Heatherly and a man she didn't find familiar, and a woman behind him with a baby in her arms. Carole blinked, startled. "Hi?"

Jester motioned to the man with the regulation haircut beside him, and she didn't miss the fact that he was in plain clothes. "Carole, this is Bill Cortell."

"Cougar," Bill supplied helpfully when she continued to frown.

Now it made sense as she finally recognized him from when the squadron had deployed months ago, and Carole stepped aside to allow them in, smiling at the baby as they passed her and she shut the door. "Bradley's sleeping in the arm chair." She smiled at the baby, glanced at the woman. "Connie?" The woman, Connie, nodded and handed the baby girl off to her. "Oh!" The baby gurgled happily up at her, and Carole smiled down at her. "And what's your name, little one?"

"Georgia," Bill told her happily, then sobered and peered at Bradley. "I'm sorry I wasn't here for the funeral, Carole. I didn't even know until someone from VF-1 got a hold of me on Sunday."

Carole hugged the baby and then handed her back to her mother, glanced at Jester, who nodded. "You called someone from their squadron."

"Yes."

Bill sighed, and then blinked when Carole was suddenly hugging him. He froze, but only for a moment, and then hugged her back just as fiercely. "I..."

"Don't," Carole told him, and let him hear how raw she felt inside. "You're here, Cougar. That's all that matters."

"Doesn't feel like enough," Bill muttered into her hair. "Where's Mav?" Slowly, Carole pulled away to look at him, glanced at Jester, and then pulled the message out of her pocket and showed him. He read it with a thoughtful frown. "Oh. Is it good or bad that he's on the Enterprise right now?"

"Little of both," Jester admitted. "Viper wouldn't tell me who the pilot-less RIO was."

"It's Sam," Bill told him with a smile. "Mine. And if I know Sam, he'll take one look at Mav and give him a hug without being told what's wrong."

Carole stared at him. "He's in good hands?"

"The best, Carole." Bill nodded to Bradley. "Can I meet him?"

Carole smiled and went over to wake her son. He could nap later.


Now...


They were silent for a few minutes as Merlin helped Ice get Maverick situated on the bunk again. After that kind of an admission, clearly classified while also being traumatic, Ice no longer minded so much about staying right where he was. Merlin met his gaze and motioned to Turner, who had pulled a notepad out of his pocket and was making notes while going thru a breathing exercise, clearly disturbed but managing to cover it extremely well. Ice nodded and bent his head to study Maverick's face intently until he was satisfied that Mav was truly sleeping and not about to have another flashback.

He wasn't sure he could take another of those right now, and Turner was clearly spent emotionally. They all were, really.

["Of all the stupid things,"] Turner muttered in Spanish to himself, unaware that Ice, at least, understood him. ["Who tells someone how their parent died like that? Especially this kid, in these circumstances? Damn it."]

Ice looked beyond the Corpsman to Slider, who nodded, for they'd taken the language class together. "Corpsman?"

"In a minute," Turner said, this time in English as he put the notepad back in his pocket and began the breathing exercise again, this time counting to ten with his fingers.

Ice shifted his gaze again to Slider, then to Hollywood who still appeared angry, and Wolfman was watching his pilot with an expression of concern. "No, I think you need to take a walk. Take Wood and Ron with you."

"Scuttlebutt," Hollywood snarled suddenly, then shook his head when Ice glared at him. "I mean-"

"I know what you mean," Ice told him with a glance down at Maverick's sleeping face. "But we can't do anything from here, Rick. And we can't talk about it. Not right now. If it was as classified and redacted as I think it was, that it made into scuttlebutt the way it did as some kind of gremlin aviation story, then... no. Viper probably risked his career even saying word one, no matter how it came out."

"Nam was a geopolitical quagmire," Turner muttered in agreement, still counting on his fingers, and the emotional undertone caused Hollywood to really look at him. "What?"

"Oh. Come on, Doc. He's right. Let's go for a walk." Hollywood got to his feet, glanced down at his RIO, who waved him off as he picked the cards up off the deck and shuffled them. "Leo?"

"Get," Wolfman told him. "Or I'm hauling you to the hanger and telling the crew to let you play with mechanical things until you calm down for real."

Turner looked to Merlin, who motioned to the hatch. "All right. We'll go for a walk. Probably bring back that water that Ron forgot, too." He stood up and grabbed the bag at his feet.

"Hey," Slider said as he stood up. "We went to the Gym, not the Mess."

"And now you get to come with me to medical," Turner told him with a wan smile. "I'd be remiss if I didn't give them a sample we paid the price for."

Ice watched them leave, then looked at Wolfman. "Play with mechanical things?"

"Minor in Mechanical Engineering," Wolfman explained with a shrug as he stood up, tossed the deck of cards onto Slider's bunk, and then realized Merlin was holding a set of dog tags. He stared at them for a moment. "When did he drop those?"

"I think when Ice hauled him up onto the bunk," Merlin said. "I'm not sure where to put them."

"In your pocket, Sam," Ice told him. "Give 'em back when he wakes up, whenever that'll be."

Wolfman took the chair while Merlin sat down on a bunk again, and he studied Ice as he looked down and then put a hand on Mav's arm. "You're upset, too."

"We all are," Ice told him with a visible shudder. "And that flashback state happened so fast that one minute he was letting Turner tell him what to do with the Urinal, and the next he was asking where his mother was. And then he was on the far side of the bunk and crying. I never want to see that again." He stared down at Mav. "I can guess what happened, but... damn it."

Merlin winced. "Like you told Wood: we can't do anything from the Indian Ocean. Best we can do is support him here, and we are."

"Feels like we're just watching him suffer nightmares and flashbacks," Ice muttered darkly, and Wolfman nudged him on the knee. "What?"

"You're looking at it wrong." Wolfman handed a scrap of paper to him that he'd pulled out of a pocket, and Ice took it, frowning at the phone number and the name. "That guy? He'd have been at graduation if he hadn't been stuck in Fort Worth with a crisis times four or five. He warned us. He didn't have to. I'm not sure what he said to Viper, but... it's not SOP to send new graduates on deployment when we're supposed to go back to our own squads and teach, and SOP would be to deal with the problem with people already in the area. Where are we, Tom? What kind of risk did Viper take sending Mav out at all? And he sent the four of us along, why? We were not stationed on the Enterprise. We had our own assignments."

Ice stared at the phone number some more, letting all of that sink in. "He did, didn't he? Someday, I want to meet this guy. And you're right. It's not SOP."

"I'm glad you're all here, though," Merlin put in. "SOP, or not... very tired and worn out aviator included. Makes me feel not so useless." Wolfman glanced at him in question. "I didn't even know Cougar had turned in his wings until after. He didn't speak to me about it. Didn't let me help. At all. Also, he was supposed to be sleeping it off in medical and escaped them."

A knock at the hatch, and an unfamiliar man to both Ice and Wolfman poked his head in, then winced. "Sorry."

Merlin shook his head. "It's fine, Bert. Need something?"

Bert frowned at the sight that Ice made with Maverick sleeping on his lap, then shook his head. "No. I have a message for you, actually." He passed it to Merlin. "What... why-"

"Stress reaction," Wolfman told him, and Bert nodded in understanding. "Sam?"

Merlin smiled. "Cougar was in Miramar to see Carole and Bradley, with Connie and their baby. Thank you, Bert."

Bert smiled back. "My pleasure." He nodded to Ice and Wolfman, and then left them to it.

The message: "Tell Mav that Carole and Bradley miss him and that we're fine here, and Carole got to meet Connie and Georgia. Fair winds and following seas, Sam."

 

A/N: So... Viper is definitely doing a thing. Thing is probably a bit less complicated than trying to repatriate the Winter Soldier on paper. (That's really hard, by the way.)
I was not talked out of medical things. Twice. In fact, Mom basically said "go type already" for the second one.


Two weeks ago...


They'd been walking to join Viper while he talked with one of the Base Hospital doctors when the doctor escorted him through a set of double doors. Hollywood frowned, looked back the way they'd come, and was startled to see Carole Bradshaw enter the hallway, her son in her arms and Jester behind her. He nudged Wolf's shoulder and they went back to the nurse's station to join them. "Hey, Carole."

She stared at both of them, looked them up and down with calculating eyes as if she was deciding something, and then nodded. "Where is Pete?"

Hollywood frowned. Why wasn't she asking for Goose? "Here somewhere. No one is telling us anything yet." He nodded to Jester. "Sir."

"Someone called Jenkins before me," Carole explained, her tone all but snarling at them before she shook her head and took a deep breath. "I spoke to Al. And I know Pete is in shock. So where is he? Now."

"I talked to Jenkins," Wolfman told her, and handed the slip of paper to Carole. "Coast Guard diver gave that to me, said Mav was repeating it. You know this Jenkins guy?"

Carole stared at the piece of paper for a moment, then handed it back to him with her free hand, adjusting Bradley, who was staring up at her silently, as she did. "Yes. Call him to talk if he told you that you could." She stepped up to the nurses station, glared at both Nurses seated there. "I am Carole Bradshaw, one of Pete Mitchell's emergency contacts, as well as listed as one of his next of kin. Update, please."

One of the nurses glanced down at the file she currently had open, checking, and then nodded. "Doctors are still assessing him, and he passed out when the helicopter got here, ma'am. I can not tell you more right now."

Carole nodded. "Thank you."

"You're not going to ask about-"

"No," Carole cut him off, glaring at Hollywood. "Because there are few reasons why Pete would be in shock and then pass out after flying."

Hollywood dared to glance at Jester, and found him watching Carole with open admiration. "You know. We don't even know anything yet, but you do." The flicker of emotion that crossed her face in that instant answered his assessment. "Oh, Carole..."

"No time for that right now," she bit out, and Bradley squirmed, causing her to look down at him, blinking as if suddenly remembering she was holding her son. "Oh. Bradley, honey."

"Want Daddy," he said simply. "Uncle Mav."

"I'll take him," Wolfman said suddenly, holding his arms out, and Carole's eyes went to his name patch. Then she handed him over, and Bradley was staring up at him. "Hey, kiddo. Mom needs a moment, all right? Let's go see if the waiting room has some blocks, what do ya say?"

"Blocks?" Bradley asked.

"Yes. Blocks."

Hollywood watched them go, then glanced up the hallway again, and there Viper was, coming towards them with the doctor he'd been talking to before. When they got close enough, he held up a hand. "Sir, she wants to see Maverick."

Viper's gaze went to Jester, who glared back at him. "What is she doing here?"

Jester shrugged. "She was already on her way out the door when I got there, and if it had been one of us, with our families on base, they would want to be here, sir."

Viper nodded thoughtfully, then focused on Carole, who was waiting impatiently. "He is being moved to a room as we speak, Mrs. Bradshaw. He's bruised from the spin and ejection, and unconscious right now. Would you come with me, so the doctor can update you on-"

"There is nothing to update me on," Carole interrupted, eyes flashing with not at all restrained impatience. "We can talk about it after I see Pete."

Viper froze and stared at her, then turned to look at the doctor. "What room was he being moved to?" The doctor told him, and then they were both moving, and Hollywood stared after them for moments before Jester prodded him in the shoulder. They ran to catch up.

~*~*~*~*~*~​

When they got to the room, Viper hesitated to open the door. "Mrs. Bradshaw-"

"He's my husband's pilot, Commander," she said and opened the door for him. "And I've seen him in his underwear, because he lived with us." She went in alone and Viper was left staring after her.

A hand on his shoulder, and he looked back to find Hollywood, and Jester behind him. "How is she-"

"Next five minutes," Jester said simply, to the point, and Hollywood glanced at him in confusion.

Viper nodded, understanding catching up him. The three of them chanced to look into the hospital room and found Carole seated on the bed, watching Maverick intently as he slept, blessedly unconscious.

"Get in here and shut the door," Carole said, and Hollywood frowned at the emotion he heard. "Don't stand out there gawking. He'd hate that. Sit."

Hollywood sat on Mav's other side on the hospital bed and looked at him first (out cold, bruises forming on his right arm), and then Carole while Viper and Jester pulled chairs closer and sat down. "Carole?"

"I've seen him repeat that phone number and name before," she admitted. "It's how I was the one to call Jenkins, once, because we needed answers quickly and Pete wasn't able to give them after he'd had a severe nightmare." She glanced up, met his concerned gaze. "Jenkins explained that it was a trauma response, that he'd made Pete memorize his phone number so he could call him if things were bad, because he was only one person and couldn't be there, where ever Pete was, all the time."

"A social services case worker?"

"Both parents died when he was young, Lieutenant," Viper supplied quietly, and Hollywood glanced at him, wondering how the Commander knew that, and then remembered the orders they were all given, about the scuttlebutt that followed Mav. Of course he'd know that. "Alan Jenkins, Mrs. Bradshaw?"

"Yes." She nodded to Hollywood. "His RIO called him... Wolfman, or do you call him Leonard?"

"Wolf, usually," Hollywood said, then looked at Viper, who was mildly glaring at him. "Honestly, we didn't know what the phone number was, and he didn't say that he knew Carole, from what I overheard when Wolf was talking to him. Just to watch out, for some reason, for singing a certain song and to just let him if he did. Which doesn't make any sense." He looked down at Mav, still out cold. "How bad is this?"

Carole sighed, and in that moment he didn't need an answer. It would be bad, so incredibly bad that there were no words for it. Mav started twitching and vocalizing, and she put a careful hand on his shoulder. "Hey, Pete. There you are. Wake up for me, huh?"

"Mmmph," Mav muttered and opened his green eyes. He found Carole immediately and stared at her, and she shushed him.

"Don't talk right now, all right? I'm here." She glanced at Hollywood again, frowning... "Rick is here. We're here, okay?"

Hollywood wondered for a moment why she was explaining it like that, that he wasn't alone, and then Mav's gaze landed on him and the pain in those eyes was so intense that he felt like he'd been punched. Oh. "What she said. We're here, Mav."

"Sore," Mav told them, voice breathy and full of emotion, and then Carole was leaning down and cupping his cheek with her hand. "Carole-"

"Not now, Pete. Go back to sleep, okay? We're here." She held his gaze, stroking his cheek with her hand, until he was out again. "Lieutenant Commander Heatherly? Go find my son and Wolf, if you don't mind. Bradley wanted to see Pete. We can do that now." She pulled the hospital gown away to get a look at his chest while Jester left the hospital room, then put it back the way it had been. "No wonder he's sore. Those are going to look a lot worse before they get better."

"Probably also has full-body aches right now," Viper said thoughtfully. "Ejection is hard."

"Also that," Carole agreed. They were silent for a few minutes until the door opened and admitted Jester, Wolfman, and Bradley, who was handed off to Carole.

Bradley stared at Maverick with wide eyes, then looked at his mother. "Momma?"

"He's sleeping, honey. Needs it, after today." She let go and Bradley scrambled over to Mav, tucking into his left side and Mav unconsciously cradled him and turned so he fit better. "There you go. Remember that he's sore, okay? No kicking at him."

Bradley nodded and then Carole stood up, looked between Hollywood and Wolfman, then nodded. "You two stay here with them. I need to talk to the Commanders."

Hollywood watched her go, Viper and Jester following, and then looked down at Mav as Wolfman joined them on the bed. They sat there a long time, watching and listening as Bradley hummed and sang a lullaby that wasn't quite familiar to either of them.


Now...


In the infirmary, Hollywood should have been surprised by Turner pulling a mostly full male urinal out of the bag he'd been carrying and passing it off with instructions for testing, but he wasn't. Not after the day they'd had. "Paid the price for, huh?"

Turner paid him no mind as he motioned to both of them to sit down and wait in chairs against the wall, and then pulled another Corpsman aside for a discussion in hushed voice tones, too low for either of them to catch.

Hollywood glanced at Slider, whose facial expression was curious but also kind of a blank blandness. "This doesn't worry you."

"No. What worried me was the breathing exercises and the finger counting."

"Ron..."

Slider shook his head. "Give a man a focus, work past the triggers. Turner was doing fine, but he'd been in there since very early this morning, a little after midnight." Now he looked over and Hollywood realized that there was emotion, a lot of it, just under the surface being held back. "And he had to wake me at some point, too. I think. It's fuzzy."

Hollywood nodded, understanding. That long with them, with multiple people having problems like they were... "Hard."

"Yeah." They sat there in companionable silence until Turner pulled up a chair, reversed it, and sat down. "Done already?"

Turner smiled but it did not reach his eyes. "Depends on what you mean by done, Lieutenant. Done having a conference with a colleague? Never done. Done getting someone to run urine samples? Maybe. Done for the day? Not even close." He studied both of them of a minute, then shook his head. "Of the six of you, I would not have expected to have to pull you for a cool down, Lieutenant Neven. I understand the reasons, but... scuttlebutt? What about that upset you?"

"Are you really wanting to know, or do you already?" The glare Turner leveled at him made Hollywood want to crawl into a hole.

"Asking me questions for my questions does not help you," Turner said patiently. "And you will have to pass a psych evaluation to be cleared to fly. All six of you will. Either here or in Miramar."

"Six of us?" Slider asked.

"Wells, too. He had to fly with the emotionally unstable pain in the ass."

It shouldn't have been funny, but right then, hearing Turner say it so deadpan like that, Hollywood could not resist laughing, and Slider and the Corpsman were witness to him giggling at first, and then outright laughter, which only got worse when at least one person in the infirmary turned to look at them in curiosity. Turner waved them off without looking, and Slider put an arm around Hollywood's shoulders, bracing him as the laughter subsided. "Rick?"

"Oh God, we are not telling him that," Hollywood wheezed when he could talk again. Turner's raised eyebrow set him off again.

"Rick?" Slider asked again, not startled at all when the giggles turned to sobs against his chest. He met Turner's gaze with a frown, and Turner nodded. "You wanted this."

"Yes." Turner moved his chair closer and got Hollywood's attention. "All right, Lieutenant?"

"No," Hollywood told him, chest still heaving as if he'd run ten miles. "Why?"

"Why I'd I trigger you to release in such a way, or why am I asking?"

"Trigger."

Turner smiled. "Good answer."

"Jerk."

"The answer, however, is that holding everything in is bad," Turner told him after a silent minute, waiting as Hollywood's breathing slowed down to mostly normal. "And I had an emotional upheaval of my own not half an hour ago."

"Was hard to miss," Slider told him. "But well covered."

"Lots of practice," Turner told him, and then flinched when a glass of water entered his field of vision and he spun to find the Corpsman he'd been talking to before standing there, smirking at his reaction. "Are you trying to get punched, Evan?"

"No, I didn't want to interrupt any more than necessary," Evan said, nodding to Hollywood. "It's not my fault that you have a punch first and ask questions later automatic response after a panic attack. Thirsty, Lieutenant?"

"Yeah." Hollywood frowned at Evan. "Punch first and ask questions later?"

Turner took the glass, handed it to Hollywood. "We all have our problems. Ron?"

"I'm not fine, either, but one problem at a time," Slider said as Hollywood drank the water and handed the glass back. "Now, really: Scuttlebutt, Rick?"

Hollywood glanced at Evan who was still hovering, then at Turner, blinking in realization. "You're probably the ones who would understand the most, aren't you? This is Mav's deployment assignment. You know the scuttlebutt that follows him."

Turner nodded. "We do. Hard not to, and if it does come up, we, here in medical, combat it where we can with lots of observations about the geopolitical quagmire. Evan, go make yourself useful and see if those results are back yet, please."

"They're not," Evan muttered as he took the empty glass and the hint and left them to it.

Turner shook his head, his expression one of slight amusement. "Hurts to realize the Scuttlebutt is undeserved and uncalled for and cruel, right?"

"Yes. I didn't understand at first, because it was training and we'd been ordered in writing by Comander Metcalf not to discuss it, and then the scuttlebutt rumor seemed to be true." Hollywood craned his neck to look at Slider. "Hop 19, remember? He swore not to do that again. Twice. To me and to Nick."

"And he didn't." Slider's eyes went distant and Hollywood nudged him. "I'm fine. Just thinking we should get a copy of Comms from yesterday for you to hear." He glanced down at Hollywood. "You saw him after, but during? He made me proud. Which is weird, when we're trying not to get killed."

"Not really," Turner told him thoughtfully. "Heat of the moment can be weird as all hell." He stood up. "After I bother Evan about those results, what say we go bug Stinger for that Comms recording for when I think you're ready to listen to it, hmmm?"

Hollywood nodded. He watched Turner go, glanced up at Slider again. "What's he worried about, anyway?"

"Mav's still got a fever," Slider muttered. "Probably checking to see if it's a UTI, just to be safe."

Turner came back shortly, eyes scanning a sheet of paper with an unreadable expression, then he folded the report and pocketed it, and looked at both of them with a sigh. "Not a UTI. I'm probably just over thinking."

"Unfamiliar places, lots of stress," Slider reminded him as he helped Hollywood to stand, steadied him when he swayed slightly. "Wood?"

"Let's go bug a CAG," Hollywood said with humor he wasn't really feeling. They did.

~*~*~*~*~​

Knocking on Jardian's open office door, Turner could already see that maybe they shouldn't have decided to bug him after all as the man looked up from the file he was reading with a surly expression. "Sir?"

"Come on in," Jardian told them and looked down at the file again. "Hollywood, did Metcalf also read you into whatever he's doing that got the five of you ordered out here for a month, or was it just your RIO?"

Hollywood paused and turned to look at Slider in confusion. "No, sir. Wolf didn't tell me anything, and I didn't talk to Viper personally about anything, either. Why?"

"Because," and here he held up the page he was reading, or trying to read, but it was so full of black line redactions that reading it was nearly impossible. "He sent this copied excuse of a report from a classified all to hell mission and wrote 'as a personal favor, please don't let Maverick do anything stupid while you've got him.'"

Turner froze. "What's the date on that?"

"Does it matter?" Jardian took in the pained expression on Turner's face, then looked at the other two... who were simply staring at him. "What?"

"Tough day, sir," Slider answered carefully. "And Carole Bradshaw also gave us the advice to keep Mav out of trouble as we were leaving, though probably not for the same reasons."

Jardian nodded. "Date is eighteen or so years ago, Corpsman."

"And we've caught you in a mood," Turner observed. "Our apologies. Is now the right time to ask for a Comms recording from yesterday?"

"Comms recordings?"

"Wood missed the good and bad parts after getting shot down, sir," Slider explained. "And this is a distraction from... things."

"Things," Jardian said slowly with a glance at Turner, who sighed. "Are we going to be putting the things in an official medical report?"

"Right now? Not as more than a 'patient slept disturbed for a day or so when he should have been on leave' type of note. And for the other five including these two, probably the same kind of notes." Turner shrugged. "If you want to know ahead of time."

"I thought you said we had to pass psych evals."

"You do. Probably by the time we get around to actually doing evaluations, you'll pass them."

Jardian looked between them, then down at the paper in his hand. "Right. I expect you lot to keep Maverick out of trouble when he's awake enough to even think about getting into said trouble or do anything stupid, even if I have no idea why a request from the Fighter Weapons School Commander would be made like this."

"Is that a direct order, sir?" Slider asked, humor in his tone.

"You can consider it a direct order, Lieutenant." He handed a cassette tape to Turner that had been sitting near his left elbow. Turner simply looked at him with raised eyebrows, and Jardian shrugged. "Wells was going to ask for a copy to study, because he always does. Figured I'd ask Bert instead and beat him to the punch."

~*~*~*~*~*~​

The bunk room was quiet when they returned with bottles of water and two bags, one from the Imfirmary and the other from the Mess. Ice didn't even look up from the book he was reading as Turner set the bags under the desk in the corner. "There better not be another male urinal in there, Doc."

The observation made Turner snort in laughter as Hollywood took his book back and climbed up onto his own bunk. "No, once was enough. I think we can actually trust him to navigate now that he's started making sense." He tapped Wolfman on the shoulder and the RIO shook his head. "Wolfe..."

"Grab a top bunk, Doc," Wolfman told him without looking away from the newspaper in his hand. "Take a nap. I don't care if you are a Lieutenant Commander and outrank me. You were up all night for us."

Turner sighed and took note of where Slider and Merlin were, and that Hollywood was engrossed in his book again. "Take a nap, huh?"

Ice glanced at him, nodded. "He's been quiet since you left, so take the reassurance right now and get up there," he motioned to the bunk above him. "And get some sleep."

"You might have to wake me," Turner said finally, and carefully climbed up onto the top bunk.

"And how is that different from how we've been, in here?" Slider asked, pointedly. Turner smiled in answer, and then, with a speed that shocked them, was asleep incredibly quickly. "What... how did he do that?"

"He's a Corpsman," Merlin said, yawning. "Can probably sleep anytime, anywhere, on anything."

Wolfman set the newspaper down momentarily and looked at Ice. Then he shook his head, shrugged. "Wish we'd realized sooner that all he needed was contact. Carole showed us, but I didn't know why she did it until now."

Ice frowned at him. "Did what?"

"Bradley was in Mav's hospital room, cuddling with him," Hollywood explained. Ice glanced downward, then nodded. Somehow, that made total sense, given what they'd learned.

They spent the next several hours in companionable silence. Turner only had to be woken once.

 

A/N: Details about Richard "Duke" Mitchell (including his first name) taken from the movie novelization of Top Gun. Details about the history of the F-4 Phantom in relation to the Oriskany taken from the Wiki page on VF-51, as well as other details found there.
Thank you to like-islands for the link to the movie novelization, thereby saving me having to buy it on Amazon for $80. Much appreciated.


Weeks ago...


It was early, before classes for the day, when Viper looked up to find Charlie at his office door, holding a yellow notepad and frowning at it, as if she was trying to figure out a complex math problem. "Charlie?"

She glanced at him, then studied the notepad again, lost in thought. What she said next gave him pause. "The dates are wrong, and you can't have flown an F-4 Phantom off of the Oriskany, because the F-4 was too big for the carrier deck."

Viper frowned, wondering what had made her look into something like that. "What?"

"Stories told over dinner, Mike," Charlie mused, still looking at the notepad. "Stop me if I've gotten any of this wrong, official story or otherwise. A man disappeared, went AWOL, in an F-4 Phantom in November of 1965. This same man, a test pilot with Grumman for the F-14 before he returned to active duty with VF-51... this same man and his wife, according to their son, liked an Otis Redding song that was not released until January of 1968." She looked up from the notepad, frowning at him. "I know for a fact that VF-51 did switch to the F-4, but that wasn't until 1971. So, and I ask this carefully, because not even my security clearance could get me into those files... what actually happened to Duke Mitchell?"

"Get in here and close the door," Viper said automatically while motioning to the chair near his desk. "Sit."

Charlie did as he ordered, saw down, and waited as Viper composed himself. "What about that makes you uneasy?"

"How did you hear the official story?"

"Maverick told me," Charlie answered, frowning again at the sigh that he failed to hide. "The way he talked about his mother set off so many bells, and then there was the classifiedness of what he does know, or thinks he does, about his father. I couldn't not look into it after that, and that was when I figured out that everything about it is off."

"Intentionally," Viper muttered and stood up to look out of his office window for a minute. He wanted to say a lot of things, things he'd been ordered to keep quiet about. When he turned back to her, she was waiting patiently. Then he nodded. "Laos was an even worse quagmire than Vietnam, because of the civil war and CIA involvement. The State Department ordered every last one of us who had survived the mission to secrecy, and Duke's family was told a fabricated story." He sat down again, opened one of the drawers in his desk, and pulled out a thick folder that he set on his desk. Viper stared at the file for a moment, then met her steadying gaze. "I didn't find out the damage it had done until it was too late to do anything, because Duke's wife had moved back to Fort Worth Naval Air Station from Long Island while he'd been gone instead of here to Miramar where VF-51 was and is stationed. By the time I was stateside again, she was deceased and his son was in the Foster Care system."

Charlie nodded slowly. "So I'm right." She paused. "Foster care?"

"That detail stays here," Viper told her sharply. "Why were you having dinner with Maverick, if you don't mind my asking?" It was incredibly unusual for her to get involved with students that came through the program.

"I wanted to hear more about the MiG encounter."

Viper nodded, then tapped the file with an index finger. "I've been trying to find a way to undo the redactions and the secrecy ever since, Charlie. Trying to bring Duke home, as it were, getting report after report from people who were there and survived, but I need someone in Washington. I need you, and I need a Freedom of Information Act Request, a FOIA, submitted to the State Department and the CIA by someone, but haven't found that person yet." He watched her open her mouth and shook his head. "That will not be you, Charlotte. You're under government contract, work here, and that would be tied back to me, and I was sworn and ordered to secrecy."

"You want me to take the promotion if it's offered," Charlie realized, eyes going wide.

"And I'll need you to be social, to make friends with influential people. For me."

"For Maverick," she added. "I remember those orders you put in the welcoming packets for everyone but him and his RIO. Makes sense, now."

"As to what happened, unofficially, and I'm swearing you to secrecy until we fix this," Viper sat back, took a deep breath to calm his nerves. "We were running secret interdiction missions, deep air support, into Laos, in F-8 Crusaders..."

Charlie left his office twenty minutes later with a new sense of purpose.


Two weeks ago...


They were sitting on uncomfortable chairs in the waiting area of the Base Hospital, Ice with his head in his hands that were propped up on his knees because he was emotionally exhausted, and Slider watching him. It had been a long hour or two since landing, and what Slider wanted to do was be anywhere else. He didn't want to think about having watched a plane spiraling toward the ground, panicked voices in his ears... and if he started thinking about it instead of watching his pilot, it would be him needing a minute instead of Ice.

Which was probably why he didn't notice her until she was standing in front of them, hands on hips, and then pulling up a chair to sit in front of Ice. Carole nodded to him, then took Ice's hands in hers and got his attention.

Ice looked up at Carole, puzzled at first, and then he stared at her. "What are you doing here?"

Carole tried to smile, but failed miserably and instead held his hands. "Same thing you are, Tom." She leaned closer, squeezed his hands. "I spoke to Commander Metcalf. He explained."

"I-"

"No," Carole said firmly. "There will be time enough for the rest of it. Right now, here, this moment? I need you to know that it's not your fault. That it's not Pete's fault. Understood? It was an accident."

"How are you not angry?"

Carole took a deep breath, let it out, and in that moment, Slider realized that she was, indeed, angry beyond the telling of it. "I am angry, but not at you. What you do in the sky, even when you're not in combat? Dangerous. You know that. You take that risk. You all take that risk." She took another deep breath. "And I'll say it to him later when he wakes up and is ready to hear it, but I'm going to say it now to you: Nick loved flying with Pete. He loved flying, and loved to serve. He wouldn't have been the man I married otherwise." She looked away for a moment, biting her lower lip, then looked at him again. "And I think being here, learning things about how to fly better, is the happiest I'd seen Pete in a long, long time."

Ice frowned at her wording. "I don't understand that part, about the learning to fly better. What do you mean?"

Carole glanced at Slider, then looked at Ice again. "Perhaps you should think on it. If you need me to explain, then you haven't been observant enough about the right things."

"Carole," Slider started to say, and was surprised when she dragged him over and into a three way hug. They stayed like that for a while, communing without words.


Sometime Today, NAS Miramar...


The two forms in front of her looked innocuous, unimportant, except for the information printed on them in clear, precise handwriting, Carole observed as she studied them. The yellow notepad that Jester had produced when Connie had lured Bradley back to the living room didn't seem important, either. She wanted to ask so many questions, to push both Bill and the Lieutenant Commander, but instead she simply studied the content on the notepad for another few minutes.

"Carole..." Bill started to say, but she shook her head to silence him and he sighed.

"Whose handwriting is this?" She asked, finally. "It's too neat to be either of you, too fine."

"Miss Blackwood," Jester admitted. "I don't know if you met her before she left for Washington on Sunday."

"No, I did." Carole glanced at Bill with a slight smile. "She went to lunch with us three weeks ago, before the accident. And... all right. Explain these forms, please. Why are we submitting information requests to the State Department and the CIA, Jester?"

"Technically, we aren't. Just you."

Carole sat back and stared at him. "Me. All right. Why am I doing this, then?"

"Because Viper can't," Bill explained, irritation on his face and coloring his words. "Because Nick couldn't, if he'd known. Because I can't, and I want to do it just to spite them for what they put Maverick and his mother through with lies and subterfuge, and even though I'm technically on an extended medical leave, Viper still told me no. You can, because you are Mav's listed next of kin, on paper anyway."

Carole stared at him a minute or two longer, and then considered the two forms again. And then she signed them and passed them to Jester. "So it's me because I can't be punished for asking about a classified incident from the Vietnam War?"

"Yes," Jester said solemnly. "According to Viper, when Charlie figured it out after listening to Maverick talk about his parents, she wanted to do this immediately and to hell with the consequences."

"Sounds like her," Carole mused, tilting her head to one side to listen for any signs that Connie might need her to intervene, but she only heard the baby laughing and Bradley singing Puff The Magic Dragon with Connie. "And that's the other reason you came all the way to Miramar, Cougar?"

"No, I really did want to see you," Bill said. "I got pulled into a meeting with Commander Metcalf by him," pointing at Jester. "When I asked at the admin building where you were and they realized who I was from my ID card, because they have my file from when I was supposed to be coming here instead." Bill glared at Jester. "That was the fastest I've ever written a report about a traumatic experience, by the way."

At Carole's expression of 'what the hell' directed at Jester, he shrugged. "Character witnesses. You'd be surprised how thick we might need to spread the narrative to get them to actually listen and not just laugh and throw the requests out the window."

"If I'd known ahead of time, I could have gotten those from our entire squadron," Bill pointed out. "Even the ones out on the Enterprise."

"We have enough, Cortell," Jester assured him.

"If you say so."

Carole wanted to laugh at their easy interaction, and settled for changing the subject. In the living room, she could still hear Connie teaching Bradley how to sing Puff the Magic Dragon.


Now...


In the quiet of the bunk room, Wolfman heard mumbling and set the newspaper down to glance around. Mumbling by itself was fine, but not if that was a precursor to nightmares all over again. Ice was snoring, leaning against the wall behind Mav's bunk, while Mav himself was quiet. From there, he glanced up to Hollywood, who had fallen asleep with the book in his hand, and then to Turner... not him either.

Wolfman turned to look up at Slider, wondering when he'd gotten up on his bunk... also not him. Which left Merlin, mumbling about... Wolfman blinked, startled, for it was a mixture of trying to get Maverick to engage, and trying to get Cougar back to the ship. Was he dreaming about both?

He stood and moved to wake Merlin carefully with a shake, ready for him to come out swinging. Merlin's eyes flew open and he started up at him for a few moments before blinking and taking a deep breath, and then another. "Sorry, Wolf."

"Nothing to be sorry about, Sam," Wolfman told him, tone as gentle as he could make it. "Bad days, and you couldn't do anything from behind. I get it."

"You would," Merlin agreed. "All clear?"

"So far. Even Ice is asleep somehow."

At that, Merlin chuckled softly, and peered up at the still-sleeping Corpsman. "I could keep watch if you wanted-"

"No. I got this. Go back to sleep, Sam."

Wolfman waited for him to fall back to sleep, then moved the chair so he could see all of them without turning this way or that, and then sat back down to read for a while longer.

 

A/N: In the draft, two items that Turner listed off were a fax machine (which Mom laughed at, because the office I work in has gone thru two or three of them in the time I've worked there) and paper clips (don't mind me, that's what I was looking at, at the time).

~*~*~*~*~*~​

"Otoscope... ophthalmoscope..."

He shouldn't have found an inventory of medical items one would probably find in a field kit relaxing, Wolfman reflected as he read the book he'd switched to when last week's news got tiresome, but if it meant Turner wasn't going to wake up in a panic again, he'd take it.

"Sutures... replacement scalpel blades..."

At that, Wolfman frowned up at the sleeping corpsman. Why would he need replacements?

"Sterile silk... scissors..."

"What is he talking about?" Mav's sleep-clouded and vaguely hoarse voice asks, and Wolfman looked to find that Mav was staring at the underside of the top bunk, tired and confused.

"Sutures... tourniquets... trauma shears..."

Wolfman put the book down and moved the chair a bit closer. "You awake?"

"That, or I'm dreaming about a medical inventory." Mav frowned and met his gaze. "Wolf?"

"Yeah?"

"Who am I laying on?" Maverick turned his head and answered his own question. "Oh."

"You were having frequent nightmares," Wolfman explained, and Mav nodded in response.

"I know."

"Morphine... sulfa packets..."

Mav sat up slowly and looked back over his shoulder at Ice, still sleeping against the wall, with a puzzled frown. "It's kind of the last thing I'd expect from him."

"What is?"

"To do something Goose did a lot of when I needed it," Mav admitted, voice heavy with emotion. He still sounded tired, but he was awake. That had to count for something.

Wolfman was about to stand and wake the medic who was still counting off medical items when a hitching cry filled the air between them and Mav's eyes went wide. They stared at each other for long moments before the cry came again, which was followed by mumbling from... was that Slider, now?

Mav slid off the bunk to his feet and nearly fell over. "Woah."

Wolfman caught him, helped him to stand. "I got you." The hitching, hiccupping cry came again, and Mav tried to move, but Wolfman held him firm. "Words, Mav."

"Dizzy. Help me over there?"

Wolfman looked up at Slider, then nodded. "I'm not surprised. Should you even be standing right now?" Mav tried breaking his grip, and Wolfman got the message and helped him the short distance to the other bunk, only pausing at the realization that Merlin was watching them curiously from below.

Mav reached up and shook Slider's arm. When that didn't work, he jostled him a bit harder and then Slider came awake with a shout on his lips, panting as if he'd run a marathon, and Wolfman had to pull them both back when he swung at their heads.

Slider stared at them both as Wolfman quietly demonstrated controlled breathing and he followed his lead, and when he'd calmed enough to talk, he lifted his head and really looked at Maverick. "What are you doing up, Mav?"

"My turn," Mav said, voice firm and nudged Wolfman to get closer. Then he reached up again and pulled at Slider's arm.

Slider studied him, noting the glassy eyes and unsteadiness, and how insistent he was with the tugging on his arm. "For what?"

"Ron?" Merlin's voice came from below, startling him. "If he's trying to do what I think he is, then you should get down and let him."

"Why?"

"Because he's on his feet, however bad he might feel at the moment. For you."

Slider took that in, and then motioned for Wolfman to back up and take Maverick with him. Then he got down off of his bunk, and shared a look with Merlin. "For me, huh?" Merlin smiled and nodded, and Slider turned back to the other two, only to be surprised when Maverick broke Wolfman's grip and launched himself uncharacteristically at him. To say he was startled by the shorter, smaller pilot hugging him was an understatement. "Oh."

"You were crying," a tired, muffled voice said from his chest. Slider looked at Wolfman as he returned the hug, realizing the effort this must have taken, nodded to Ice's open bunk. "You were having a nightmare. My turn."

"Yes, Mav," Slider said slowly. "Your turn. Thank you. How about we sit down, huh?"

"No," Mav said. "Don't wanna."

"All right. Wolf, bring the bag from the infirmary over here please. I think they gave us a thermometer."

"Don't want that either," Mav said firmly.

Slider turned them slightly to look at Merlin. "Is this standard with any kind of fever for him?"

"Depends on if someone else was having trouble sleeping," Merlin said with a slight smile. "And he's come a long, long way." Slider frowned, and Merlin shook his head. "Later. Deal with your barnacle now."

"Am not," Mav protested. "It was my turn."

"Yes, Pete," Merlin told him sincerely. "Your turn. Can you take Ron over to that empty bunk? He looks like he needs to sit down. You should join him."

Slider blinked, startled at how quickly the reverse psychology worked, and briefly considered naming his first born, if he were ever to have kids, after his fellow RIO.

Wolfman had set the requested bag on the chair and was going thru it with a curious frown when he finally found the thermometer and also... "Ibuprofen?" He glanced up at the sleeping Corpsman, who had moved on to various kinds of scissors, and frowned slightly. "Actually, I think we do need this. Should I wake him and ask?"

"Give me thermometer first, then we'll decide," Slider said as he finally got Mav to sit down with him. "Mav, you mind if we take your temp? You're still warm." Mav shook head and curled into Slider's side. "All right, then. Wolf? Thank you." He regarded the smaller pilot for a minute, then glanced at both of them as he took the thermometer out of it's cover and shook it twice. "Of all the things I thought I'd be doing today, this wasn't one of them."

"Gaining a barnacle-like pilot that's slept most of the day, or taking his temperature?" Merlin asked humorously as he sat up.

"Both." Movement caught his eye and Slider glanced over to find that Ice was starting to twitch and mumble in his sleep. "Wolf?"

"What?" Wolfman looked at him, then followed his line of sight and frowned. "Oh. Want me to wake him?"

Slider studied Ice for long moments before shifting his gaze downward to the pilot in his grasp who hadn't noticed yet, and then put the thermometer in Mav's mouth. "Under your tongue, Mav. Sam?"

Merlin nodded and moved to go over and sit on the bunk next to Ice, dragging him into his arms. Miraculously, he settled down to just mumbling, and Merlin frowned. "Twenty more seconds?"

Slider sighed. Of course Tom was dreaming about the training accident. Didn't surprise him in the slightest. They waited, and then Slider took the thermometer back and studied it. "99.7... low grade. Yeah, I think we should give him the Ibuprofen now and tell Turner about it later. I'm surprised he didn't, when we got back here."

"Don't want it," Mav mumbled into Slider's side as Wolfman counted out two of the tablets and went to get the cup and fill it with more 7-Up. Slider frowned down at him, looked at Merlin, who shrugged. "Don't want meds."

Wolfman frowned at that. "Why not?"

"Don't want it," Mav said again. "Not sick. Not going to hospital again. Can't make me."

"Oh boy," Merlin breathed. "Mav, do you have a headache? Even a little bit?"

"Yes."

"And are you dizzy?"

"Yes."

"Then you should take the medicine, all right? Nick would want you to. We are not going to make you go to medical." Merlin caught Slider's concerned frown and put a finger to his lips. Slider nodded and watched as Wolfman brought the two pills and the glass, and handed those to Mav, who took both and chased the pills with the fluids. "Good."

Wolfman took the glass and froze as he heard, rather than saw, Ice wake behind him with a muttered "ten more seconds." "Sam?"

"He's awake," Merlin said, tone soothing. "Tom?"

Ice blinked the sleep out of his eyes, and looked down, then at Merlin in confusion. "Where's Mav?"

"Over here," Slider muttered, looking down as Maverick fell asleep again against him. "Huh. Why didn't he want medication?"

"Hates being in the infirmary himself," Merlin explained, and Wolfman, in the process of moving the chair back to where he'd had it, stared at him momentarily. "Also hates being the sick one and needing to depend on people. He cares now, so it's progress." Slowly, he let Ice go and looked him over. "All right?"

Ice shook his head. "No."

"Nor would I expect you to be, right now." Merlin shared a look with Wolfman as the other RIO put the glass back on the desk.

"Alligator Forceps... Surgical Stapler... Metzenbaum scissors..."

Ice tilted his head, glancing upward at the underside of the top bunk, frowning as Turner continued to sleepily list medical items. "He's not awake, is he?"

"No," Wolfman told him without even a glance upward. "And I'll take it over whatever nightmare it was I woke him from, before. It's refreshing, in a way."

"Bulldog forceps... Dermatome..."

"Might have to ask him about that one," Wolfman mused, then looked at Sam. "What do you mean, Mav doesn't like being in the infirmary himself? He's come a long way?"

Merlin sighed. "What he just did, with waking Ron up like that? Goose would have done it. In fact, he did it a lot, especially with Pete after something really bad." He motioned to the upper bunk. "And Goose had to talk the medics into keeping him here, rather than there, more than once, because if he didn't, Mav would give them the slip anyway. Bad hospital experiences when he was young."

"And the having come a long way?" Slider asked.

Merlin looked at the three of them one by one, then settled on Ice, who was frowning at him. "Does Mav strike you as someone who was particularly hostile to any kind of touch? Any at all, I mean."

"Not exactly," Ice said, confused at the line of questioning. "He didn't react well to me trying to lecture him on things like teamwork, but touch hasn't seemed to be a problem. Why?"

"Because that's how far he's come," Merlin finally said after a minute of silence. "Think about it: doesn't like hospitals, has a family name everyone knows, was passed from Foster Care Placement to Placement because no one wanted him, has a phone number for a social services case worker memorized, and every CO until Stinger would give him crap for anything and everything, because of who his father was. Stinger still does, sometimes. I know a lot, because he's in my squadron and we've shared a room since deployment, but... you get what I'm saying here, I hope."

"Carole didn't want to hear about her husband first, because she'd talked to Jenkins. Her first concern? Mav, and making sure he wasn't alone in that hospital room," Wolfman said, causing Ice to look at him funny for a moment.

Merlin nodded and glanced over at Slider trying to get Mav to let him go gently and Mav protesting with a low whine. "You might be stuck with him for a while." He nudged Ice's shoulder. "Come on. Let's go take a walk. Wolf, you coming?"

Wolfman met Slider's gaze and the man waved him off. "Yep. Let's go."

Slider was left with Hollywood, who had fallen asleep with a book in his hand, the Corpsman who was still reciting a medical inventory, and Maverick curled into his side.

 

A/N: This part is later than it was going to be, because I got waylaid by plot bunnies that wouldn't let me go until I finished what they wanted and they weren't for this story. They were not for the story stuck on Bespin, either. Darn it.
And also... Merlin? Radiates DAD energy and Ice verbally walked into a DAD moment without realizing he had and I was left to stare at my computer screen. Four tries on paper for a specific thing, and it happened without me actually going for it in the typed.

From Quora, because I needed to know the names of the shifts on navy ships...

The Mid Watch 0000–0400 (12:00AM to 4:00AM)
The Morning Watch 0400–0800 (4:00AM to 8:00AM)
The Fore-Noon Watch 0800–1200 (8:00AM to 12:00PM)
The Afternoon Watch 1200-1600 (12PM to 4:00PM)
The First Dog Watch 1600–1800 (4:00PM to 6:00PM)
The Second Dog Watch 1800–2000 (6:00PM to 8:00PM)
The Evening Watch 2000–2400 (8:00PM to 12:00AM)

~*~*~*~*~*~​

The ship was well into the Second Dog Watch, Wolfman reflected as they sat in the Mess and ate in silence, ignoring the activity around them. Merlin had taken them first to the head, and then here for dinner, and now Ice was picking at the food on his tray aimlessly while Merlin watched with a frown between bites. Glancing up, he noticed a group of four watching them discreetly, and vaguely recognized two of them. "Sam?"

"Hmmm?"

"Who are those four?"

Merlin followed his line of sight and then nodded in acknowledgement. "Willard and Simkin and their RIOs, Judge and Pampers."

Ice looked up, frowning. "Pampers? Judge?"

Merlin smiled. "One of them has a pre-law bachelor's degree, the other... might have kids, or there was an incident in his seat while at flight school. He refuses to tell us which."

Ice stared at him and then resumed picking at his food. "Right."

"Are you going to eat, or just pick at it?"

"You're not my father, Sam."

"He'd probably say the same thing." Merlin glanced over at the two pairs again. "And Willard got his call sign because of Footloose. It wasn't his first one, but it was the one that stuck and is appropriate to repeat on the radio."

Wolfman chuckled. "And Simkin?"

Merlin paused, then shrugged. "Refuses, unless in the air, to let us call him Siesta." Wolfman frowned at that. "Habit of falling asleep while drinking at bars?"

At that, Ice snorted in laughter and did his best to hide it. "Sam!"

"You can't tell me that you actually got yours because you do not make mistakes, Tom." He waited, then reached over to pull the tray away, and Ice glared at him. "So you do want dinner. Sure seems like you don't."

Ice sighed, the present humor having cleared the tension between them a little. "Not all that hungry."

Merlin nodded, then reached into a pocket and placed Goose's dog tags on the table between them. "Then we can talk about this and see if we can't find your appetite, since I know you were dreaming about it. Tell me about it, Tom. You can't shock me, because I already heard Mav's side last night."

Ice stared at the tags for a minute before reaching out and poking at them with a finger. His expression softened a bit, then he looked up at Merlin. "Yesterday was the first time I'd seen Mav smile or laugh since the day of the accident. I can see him, that day, smiling at me from his plane, being an ass, and until yesterday, I hadn't seen him, himself, in two weeks. I know that makes no sense-"

"It does," Wolfman said quietly. "And you're not wrong. It did and does feel like that."

Ice glanced at him, nodded, and then looked at Merlin again. "It's just... you know Top Gun is a competition as much as it is a learning experience, right?"

Merlin nodded again. "Yes, and I also know that the learning experience is equally as valuable as the bragging rights." Ice winced visibly. "I'm not here to condemn you, just observe and listen."

"I deserve the condemnation."

"Do you?" Merlin reached over and put his hand over Ice's that was still fiddling with the dog tags.

Silence fell for a minute or so and Wolfman noticed Jardian watching them from another table, on the other side of Willard and Simkin's, nursing a cup of coffee as if it was the most normal thing in the world, for the Commander of the Air Carrier Group to be in the Mess with his men. Maybe it was.

"It was my jet wash," Ice admitted, his voice so quiet and hoarse that Wolfman jumped and then stared at him, CAG forgotten. "And my failure to fly safely. My failure, Sam... to listen when I should have. Even Ron was telling me to fire, but I couldn't get the angle. And then... and then..."

Wolfman wanted to reach out, but Merlin reached for his hand first and squeezed it firmly, a silent 'no,' stopping him from even opening his mouth. Blinking, he met Jardian's steady gaze again, and the man also shook his head in the negative. Could he hear from over there, or was he just really good at reading the situation?

"...and then Nick was panicking in my ears. They both were." Ice blinked, shook his head. "That tape you have, of the buzzing incident? I hadn't heard his voice since the accident. I... I..."

"Breathe, Tom," Merlin said gently, demonstrating. "And I have a question for you."

"You do?"

Merlin studied him, then nodded once. "If it had been a real dogfight, would you have hesitated to clear? Would you have even put yourself or another pilot in that position?"

Ice froze, then shook his head. "No. There would have been no time for it." Merlin tilted his head, expectant. "What?"

"Training is different," Merlin reminded him. "We do things in training that we would not do in combat or out on patrol, ordinarily. And we aviators are a competitive, risk-taking bunch. We have to be, because every time we go out, there is always a chance..."

Ice stared at him for a moment as Merlin let the sentence drift, and then he nodded in resignation. "Always a chance, even while in a training exercise and being stupid."

"I wasn't going to put it like that," Merlin said and released Wolfman's hand with a nod in his direction.

"But it's still the truth."

"FOD ranges," Wolfman said suddenly, startling them both, and Ice looked at him funny. "How close were you following Jester's A-4? And how close was Mav following you?"

Ice opened his mouth, then shut it again, and then closed his eyes to visualize for a minute, then two. Then he sagged visibly and the only thing keeping him grounded was Merlin's hand on his over Goose's dog tags. "Oh."

Merlin frowned at Wolfman, who shrugged. "We went over it in TACTS when Ice, Slider, and Mav weren't there. Inside 1200 feet. If real missiles and guns had been used?"

"Wolf, I," Ice paused to take a deep breath. "I didn't even think of that."

"Too soon," Wolfman reminded him and Ice nodded in agreement. "And while we're on the subject of feeling like failures because of idiocy... Sam? You're not useless."

Merlin sighed. "I said it felt like I was, not that I actually was useless. There's a difference." He frowned at Ice. "Now, really: you tried to lecture Maverick about team work?"

"Did more than that, really," Wolfman put in, and Ice winced. "Called him dangerous and worse than the enemy, too."

"Wolf-"

"Tom," Wolfman drawled, interrupting him and Ice stared back at him, waiting. "I know why you did and said all of that, but some things... did you or did you not realize that Mav didn't know anyone there but his RIO? Or the why of it?"

Ice glanced at Merlin. "What's he talking about?"

"On your finger, Tom," Merlin replied evenly, and Ice looked down at his hands. "We can't talk about it in detail here, but... that thing that Viper told Mav on Sunday, about his father? Taking the long way around through enlistment instead of the Academy, because they wouldn't let him in, even though he should have had an automatic nomination and was qualified? Everything else you've learned today that you didn't know before because it wasn't your business to know? When I say he's come a long, long way, I mean it. Goose took him under his wing and Cougar treated him like a person that belonged where before, everyone else found out what his name was, who his father was, and how he flies, and..."

Wolfman glanced up to find that Jardian was leaving the Mess, seemingly satisfied, then returned his attention to Ice who was still staring at his hands. "We are not trying to make you feel bad-"

"No," Ice said, interrupting him, still looking at Merlin contemplatively. "Something that Carole said makes sense now, about not being observant about the right things. She's right and I hate that she is."

"How so?" Merlin asked.

"Because I was so focused on certain things that I missed what was right in front of me the whole time?" Ice shook his head and looked at Wolfman. "Wood brought a textbook with him, didn't he?"

"Yes," Wolfman answered. "Why?"

"Because I have an idea." He leaned back and looked over at the two pairs. "And we're supposed to be teaching what we learned, aren't we?"

Wolfman shared a questioning look with Merlin for a minute before nodding in the affirmative. "Yes. I don't see where you're going with this idea, exactly."

Ice smiled and looked at him. "Mav gets to run Wood through verbal combat aerial maneuvers, with the excuse of you two getting shot down because you were surprised from behind?"

Wolfman paused at the thought of that, using it as an excuse, and then noticed that Willard was nodding. He tilted his head in question, and Willard nodded again. "That's a good idea. I like it, and I think Willard does, too."

"We all do, over here," Willard spoke up, confirming that they'd heard at least some of the conversation, if not all of it over the din of other people talking in the Mess.

"We're a long way from him doing that," Merlin observed with a glance toward the other table. "Considering that right now, he's doing a remarkable impression of a barnacle and keeps falling asleep."

"Tomorrow or the next day," Ice added, then paused. "Tomorrow might be optimistic."

"Probably."

Wolfman smiled. "Is a good idea, though."

As the two pairs were leaving, Willard stopped at Merlin's side and glared at Ice. "Kazansky? I'm glad you realize that what you pulled was both dangerous and stupid. It's good to evaluate what's happened and apply the experience to do better going forward." He turned his attention to Wolfman. "How are you, by the way?"

Wolfman paused, then shrugged. "Mostly fine. Sore from ejecting, but..."

Willard nodded and placed a careful hand on his shoulder. "Glad to hear it." He glanced at Merlin. "Barnacle-like?"

"What would Nick have done, if one of us had a nightmare?" Merlin asked carefully, and nodded at the realization on Willard's face.

"Make sure we were okay afterwards," Willard agreed. "Is whoever..."

"He's fine," Merlin told him. "Mav's got him. Mav might be asleep again, but he's got him."

Willard paused. "Right, because that makes sense in a very odd way."

Ice frowned as the pilot took his leave, then looked down at the dog tags on the table between them as Merlin slowly picked them up again and put them back in his pocket. "Who told that guy about the accident?"

"Stinger," Merlin said, watching as Ice slowly picked up his fork again. "Slider couldn't talk about it, so he sent Willard and Simkin to the CAG." His gaze went to Wolfman, who couldn't contain the chuckle that escaped him. "And normally, no, that wouldn't be funny, but..."

"It is," Wolfman finished, chuckling again. And then again. Why was he getting the giggles over something so ordinary?

Ice chuckled himself as he started to eat again. "Let it out of you gotta, Wolf."

That did not help him to stop laughing.

~*~*~*~*~*~​

The bunk room was quiet, save for the continuance of the very odd listing of medical items, as Slider sat there, amused that while Maverick had fallen asleep again, he wasn't letting go. It was comforting, in a way, and wondered just where the "my turn" assertion had come from.

"...Rankin forceps... Kelly forceps... Satinsky clamps..."

At that, Slider glanced up at Turner. How many different kinds of forceps were there? Did he even want to know the answer to that?

"...Kocher Forceps... Crile Forceps... Mixter 'right angle' forceps..."

"Did I wake up in an operating theater?" Hollywood's bewildered voice came from above him, and Slider suddenly chuckled. Now he remembered: Hollywood's outburst from when Mav was awake earlier. Of course that would get stuck somehow, when the pilot was tired, dizzy from a low grade fever and had a headache. "Wait. Where is Mav?"

"Down here with me," Slider answered, and Hollywood's head appeared, eyes narrow as he peered down at them from the top bunk. "Sam called him a barnacle. Should we change his call sign?"

"What happened?"

Slider sighed. "I had a nightmare is what happened. And I think, even though Wolf was helping him stay on his feet, that he might have used what little energy he did have to wake me. And now he won't let go." Mav mumbled incoherently in his sleep, and Slider shrugged. He was actually starting not to mind so much.

Hollywood smiled. "Ah."

"...Spencer Wells Artery Forceps... Halsted Mosquito Forceps..."

"As for Turner," Slider said, gaze going to the still-sleeping Corspman with an amused smile. "He's been stuck on different kinds of forceps for a bit."

Hollywood carefully got down from the top bunk and joined them, carefully jostling Maverick on the shoulder. "Hey, Mav? Wake up a minute, will you?"

"My turn," Mav mumbled at him without opening his eyes.

Hollywood met Slider's gaze with slight confusion, and Slider shook his head. "This isn't your bunk, Mav."

"Don't care."

Slider chuckled, and then froze when he realized that Turner had gone silent. "Wood?"

"Yeah?"

"Is he awake?"

Hollywood turned to look at and found that Turner was indeed looking back at them in confusion. "Oh."

"I would ask, but this makes sense if he woke up and one of you was having a nightmare," Turner observed as he stretched and then got down off the bunk. "Well?"

"That was me," Slider admitted. "And we gave him Ibuprofen. Two tablets, with 7-Up. Low grade fever at 99.7."

Turner nodded. "It was probably higher, before we got him to eat and drink."

"Probably," Silder agreed.

Turner moved to sit down, grabbed the book that Ice had been reading, and read the first several pages with wide eyes. Then he looked at Hollywood. "Have you read this yet? Wolfe gave it to Kazansky earlier, and... this thing is a riot."

"Is that The River Why?"

Turner looked at the cover, nodded. "Yes."

"I haven't yet, but Wolfe read some of it to me," Hollywood told him with a smile. "Wait 'till you get to the part about the Doctor, Doc."

"Oh yeah?" At Hollywood's knowing smirk, Turner genuinely smiled in return and settled in to read for a while.

The hatch opened, admitting their missing three, and Slider noted that Wolfman seemed lighter than he had before. "Wolf?"

"You sending Willard and Simkin to the CAG because you don't want to explain something traumatic shouldn't be funny," Wolfman told him after a moment of introspection as Merlin and Ice entered behind him. "But..."

"Doesn't matter what you find funny," Slider finished for him, and Wolfman nodded. "A Corpsman with surgical instruments on the brain, for instance."

"Exactly." Wolfman tapped Turner on the shoulder. "Do you always recite a medical inventory in your sleep?"

Turner didn't look up from the book. "We all have our quirks, Wolfe."

"True," Ice said as he sat down on Mav's bunk again. "How's he doin'?"

"Other than still being barnacle-like?" Slider asked in return.

"Yes, Ron. Other than that."

Mav mumbled again, too low for them to catch what he'd said, and Slider shrugged. "Considering he's slept most of the day? Not all that bad, really." Hollywood pressed The Natural into his free hand, and Slider looked at him oddly. "What's this for?"

"You're going to be stuck there awhile," Hollywood told him with a smile as he got up. "Might as well have something to read. Wolf, where did that deck of cards go?"

They spent the next hour or so playing another round of Go Fish while Turner occasionally chuckled at the book in his hands.

 

A/N: (1) I killed a second ink pen in prep for typing this part. It did not die in vain. (And now we have back story drabbles, which is a step up from NOT being able to do it when I originally intended to do write drabbles instead of going long. When I was I? June.)
(2) Part title may or may not be a reference to Jill Bearup...


The Cheese Might Take Offense


The atmosphere in the bunk room had been one of camaraderie for more than an hour when Merlin noticed Hollywood frowning first at his cards and then at his RIO and back again. That went on until finally Merlin sighed and put down his cards face down. "Wood?"

"What?"

"You might as well say what's on your mind."

Hollywood shook his head. "Got any twos?"

"No," Merlin told him patiently, and now Ice was looking at both of them funny.

Hollywood picked up a card, then rolled his eyes good naturedly. "Doc? Can we talk about the Elephant in the room?"

"I like elephants," Maverick said in his sleep, startling them, and Turner peered over at him, then shrugged.

"Depends on what the Elephant is, Lieutenant," Turner told him. "Ron, hug him a bit closer and put a hand over his ear to muffle."

"He's already practically in my lap, but sure." Slider did as he was told, then frowned at Hollywood. "What's going on?"

"I want to know what Viper told you, Wolf," Hollywood said evenly, staring at his RIO.

Slider met Turner's concerned, knowing gaze. "Oh, right. That. I want to know, too."

Wolfman studied his cards. "Told me about what?"

"Stinger has a heavily redacted report from eighteen years ago," Turner explained before Hollywood could open his mouth again. "Which had a peculiar but probably understandable in context request written on it from Commander Metcalf to 'as a personal favor, please don't let Maverick do anything stupid.'" He shrugged when Ice snorted in laughter.

"It does make sense," Ice said humorously. "Wolf?"

Wolfman shrugged. "You're not asking the right question, because he didn't tell me anything. Charlie did, or rather the notepad she was writing on did, and then I helped her look some things up." Sighing, he finally put the cards down and glanced up at Maverick with an unreadable expression. "And it's weird, but I knew about the Otis Redding song before Jenkins told me to tell the nurses to just let him sing and wait him out, but not the context. At the time, it was just a really odd detail that didn't make sense, among other details that made no sense."

Hollywood paused. "When did you help Charlie with research? And what was she researching?"

Wolfman nodded to Maverick. "What happened to Duke Mitchell, because of the story Mav told her. And it was weeks ago, Wood. You remember? I was late getting back from the base library, because I wanted a book on radar systems. That was why."

Merlin shared a quizzical look with Ice. "And now we've got Viper begging us to keep Mav out of trouble as a personal favor, when it wasn't SOP that the five you of even be here."

"And a cover story for what happened to a Naval Aviator that's full of holes," Wolfman agreed. "In fact, so full of holes, you could call it swiss cheese, and the cheese might take offense."

Now Ice set his cards down and took a deep breath. "Do I want to know how full of holes?"

"You could always ask Mav what the official story is," Wolfman suggested, moving to put a hand on Maverick's knee. "Instead of me."

"No," Turner said before Ice could, glaring at Wolfman. "Just tell us. He's had enough trauma for one day and I'd like to keep him calm, or Ron wouldn't be muffling his hearing."

Wolfman nodded. "All right. The official story, if you'll remember, is that he vanished in an F-4 in November of 1965. Only... VF-51 wasn't flying F-4's until 1971, and Duke Mitchell was actually home for a month on leave in early 1968. Because VF-51 was, is, stationed at Miramar, Charlie was able to get his service record with her security clearance. At least most of it, because some of it was redacted, even then." He glanced again at Mav, asleep with his hearing muffled against Slider's chest. "And that Otis Redding song that Mav has stuck in his head, that his mother made him play over and over again? Released in January of '68. I found that detail about the leave, and Charlie said something about children's memories being fluid."

"Ah," Turner said, making them all look at him. "She's not wrong, and if his flashbacks are anything to go by, the trauma would probably make him forget the exact timing of things." Hollywood frowned at him. "It lines up with a lot, really."

"And we still can't actively talk about it," Ice reminded him, nodding to Maverick.

"Still wondering what the Laos connection is," Wolfman muttered, staring down at the abandoned cards. "Bogies like fireflies? Lines on a map?"

Turner snorted. "Wasn't just Vietnam on fire, kid, but I guess you wouldn't know about certain things to make it make sense. Officially, the Civil War in Laos wasn't happening. Unofficially, whole different story." The five of them stared at him. "What? That's probably why there was a cover-up by the State Department. Politics is messy. But no, Kazansky, it is better that you do not discuss it openly, not even with the kid over there. At least until we know why Metcalf would make such a request, that is."

"Other than the obvious, you mean," Ice pointed out with another laugh.

Turner nodded and looked down at the book in his hands. "Yes, other than that." He heard a yawn and frowned. "Which one of you was that?"

"Wolf," Hollywood said, peering again at his RIO, who wasn't looking back at him. "Leo?"

Wolfman shook his head, avoided his gaze. "I'm not tired."

"And you're the one who didn't take a nap," Merlin said carefully, tone neutral.

Hollywood glanced at Merlin, then nudged Wolfman in the shoulder. "Come on."

"Not tired," Wolfman said again while yawning, then blinked when Hollywood pointed to his own bunk. "Wood, that's your bunk."

"And you're going to get up there with me. Come on."

Slider waited as Hollywood coaxed Wolfman all the way up to the top bunk, waited as they settled down, and then released his grip on Maverick's ear. Mav grumbled against him unintelligibly, and then slid down to actually be laying in his lap, like he had been with Ice. "Guess that answers the question of weather or not I get to move him back to his own bunk."

Merlin leaned over and tugged at Turner's sleeve. "I don't recall getting Wolf to actually talk about anything."

Turner nodded. "That makes sense. Give him a couple days and let Neven deal with it like he is." He met Hollywood's concerned gave, for Wolfman had gone right to sleep despite his protests. "You were shot down, after all. People react in different ways."

"So," Ice said as he picked the cards up and shuffled the deck. "Sam, do you know how to play Crazy Eights?"

Merlin smiled. "Yes." Ice dealt out seven cards each, and the game began.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~​

A/N: Author, on the other hand, does NOT know how to play Crazy Eights. Crazy Eights was Ish's suggestion when I was trying to work past "are we really playing Go Fish again?" after getting idea-bombed at four in the morning on Tuesday.

 

A/N: I'm holding the Goose/Viper/Wolf/sleeping Mav flashback until I get to the relevant parts of Fragmentary, and Nuance pointed back the way I'd come. Of course we weren't done in Stinger's office. Of course not, and Slider did in fact have a panic attack before that nightmare. Why is there a pending flashback with Goose? I wanted an ALIVE Nick Bradshaw, even for a minute.
(2) I killed a third ink pen while trying to figure out the Perception drabble prompt. **shrug**


Two weeks ago...


He'd been staring at his phone for five minutes after speaking to Carole, trying to think of ways Nick would be 'unavailable' that would cause Pete to go into shock but still be fine, and couldn't think of any. Alan shifted his gaze to the open files on his desk, and then sighed heavily. Of all the times... it had to be summer with people out on vacation?

"Al, I've got-" Frank's voice cut into his thoughts, only to interrupt himself. "Oh. What happened?"

Alan blinked up at him, shrugged. "No idea, Pete's commanding officer wasn't in his office."

"Huh?"

Alan nodded to his desk phone. "Got a call from the base hospital in Miramar." Frank frowned at him in confusion. "Pete was repeating my phone number, a Coast Guard diver gave it to a kid who has a call sign of Wolfman. What I know at the moment? Some kind of accident that rendered Nick Bradshaw unavailable and Pete is in shock, and they definitely landed in the ocean if the Coast Guard was involved."

Frank slowly sat down, staring at him. "Oh. Wolfman, really?"

"Last name is Wolfe." He looked down at his notes. "RIO to a pilot, call sign Hollywood." Alan glanced at the folder in his hand. "You really didn't have to walk the file to me. Phones work."

Frank shrugged and handed it to him. "I needed to get up anyway, and you probably would have made a horrible joke about the Tomkins being a bad option for a kid with trauma, even though we only ever seem to give them the tricky ones."

Alan chuckled. "I did, actually. Confused the heck out of Wolfe." He glanced at his phone again, then at the carved wooden box sitting next to it like a silent sentry, a reminder of a certain kid with trauma currently in shock in a base hospital at Naval Air Station Miramar. "Frank?"

"Yeah?"

"Is it bad that I'd rather say the hell with it, forget about us being short-staffed because it's summer, and book a flight to Miramar right now?"

Frank paused. "I wouldn't stop you if you did, Alan."


Yesterday...


They'd been out of medical and debrief for half and hour, the six of them sharing a quiet meal after the madness. Slider nudged his arm and Ice glanced up at him in question. "What?"

"Mav."

Ice blinked, startled by his tone, and turned his attention to Maverick, across the table and a few spaces down, Merlin on one side and Wolfman on the other. Maverick was leaning heavily on his left hand, and that seemed to be the only thing holding him up as he ate slowly, mechanically, and he was still wearing sunglasses. Ice frowned at that, at the picture of pure tiredness he made, and caught Wolfman's silent nod. Ah, he'd noticed too. "Gonna crash."

"Already is," Hollywood muttered on his other side, distracted. Merlin simply frowned at the three of them, whatever questions he had showing in his eyes, but not voicing them.

"I can hear you, you know," Mav mumbled between bites. "And Slider? What was the idea, telling Carole that ration packs always taste like chicken?"

"Something humorous?"

"Uh-huh." Behind the aviators, Ice could tell he was blinking, struggling, but the slight tone of amusement was a welcome difference. He jumped when Merlin nudged his arm. "Huh?"

"Just checking," Merlin said, tone light, conversational. "Ration packs, huh?"

"Probably better to bring up than the air con," Maverick said with a shrug. "It's not like we could tell her anything real, in a ship-to-shore."

"True." Merlin's gaze flipped to Ice, then to Slider, and back again.

Ice watched as Maverick stood up, stared down at the not-completely-empty food tray for a moment, then picked it up with a sigh. "Where are you going?"

"To take a shower. That all right with you?"

Ice chuckled. "Sure, it's all right with me. Why wouldn't it be?" Maverick stepped away from the table, wavered slightly, and Wolfman caught his elbow and then stood.

"Come on, Mav. Let's go."

"But-" Mav started to protest, and Wolfman glared at him, took the tray out of his hands and set it back on the table.

"Showers. Let's go."

"That-" Merlin started to say, only to be cut off by Slider.

"Tired," Slider said, and Merlin glanced at him. "Probably a headache. Was walking stiffly just now, and that started again when we got out of debrief. Wood, I think Wolf is also a bit shaken."

"He's not the only one," Hollywood told him between bites, smiling slightly when Ice yawned suddenly. "So it's two for tired."

Ice shrugged and yawned again.


Hours ago...


The wheeze in the sudden silence of the Commander's office was enough to make Turner spin on his heel and study the two aviators behind him. Hollywood was frowning at Slider, who wheezed again and tried unsuccessfully to pass it off as a cough. Then he shook his head and tried to take a deep breath, only to wheeze again. "Ron?"

"I'm..." Another wheeze. "Fine." Hollywood tugged at his elbow as the wheezing continued. "Wood, I'm fine."

"No, you're not," Jardian spoke up, voice tone so firm it made Turner automatically stand at attention before Slider wheezed again. "Sit down before you fall down. Turner, close the door."

"I'm fine," Slider tried saying again, then he was sitting down in the chair by Stinger's desk and Turner was holding his wrist while Hollywood shut the door.

Jardian studied him, then leaned forward. "Last person to claim that to me is currently asleep right now in your quarters, and I know you're not. You said as much. Corpsman?"

"Pulse is elevated, breathing is a mess." Turner glared at Slider, who continued to wheeze. "What was it that set you off, Ron? And yes, you have to tell us. Not a choice anymore."

"I don't," Slider tried to say, still wheezing. He grabbed around, and dragged Hollywood over to him. "Help."

Hollywood nodded and got down into his eye line, held Slider's gaze, then took a deep breath, demonstrating. In and out. Slider followed him, tried to take a deep breath, only to get frustrated when it ended in another wheeze. "Small breaths, then. Slow."

Slider gulped air, blew it out slowly, and little by little the wheezing subsided. "Sorry."

"That's better. Three things you see?"

"Flags. Phones. Desk."

Hollywood nodded again. "All right. What set you off?"

Slider glanced at Jardian over Hollywood's shoulder. "Permission to speak freely, sir?"

Jardian, who had been watching them in calm silence, nodded. "Granted."

"It's more what didn't, than what did." Slider glanced up at Turner, who was still mildly glaring at him. "Keeping Mav out of trouble? I started to think about the person who should actually be doing that right now instead of us."

Turner frowned at him, looked at Jardian. "Bradshaw?"

"I'd known Goose since we were at the Academy together," Slider explained, frowning. "Even then, he'd mention off-handedly things about his younger foster brother, that he'd gotten a degree in three years after graduating high school early, but had had to enlist and go the OCS conversion route instead of the Academy. I didn't put it together until now who he'd been talking about, because Goose didn't introduce him as his brother, and Mav has a legacy last name, even if it's a bad one attached to a gremlin story." Turner turned back to frown at him again and Slider shrugged. "You asked what set me off, Corpsman, and really it should have been me losing my temper earlier instead of Wood. That, and thinking about the accident where it was a normal flight until it wasn't. Until Ice cut Mav off instead of staying in the wingman position. I was focused on my instruments, keeping a watch for the other two bogies in the air, but I heard how offended he sounded... and that was when everything went to hell. I think."

Jardian nodded and pulled another tape out of one of his desk drawers, handed it to Hollywood, who was closer. "That's what it sounded like, too."

Slider picked the tape out of Hollywood's hands, stared at the label (July 29th, Hop 31). "How do you have this?"

"Metcalf wanted me to know what I was getting," Jardian explained. "And it takes two, or in this case three, to cause an accident."

"It does," Hollywood agreed as he straightened up, other hand still on Slider's shoulder, grounding him. "Three, sir?"

"Bradshaw."

Slider frowned at him. "Goose didn't do anything, sir."

Jardian sighed. "How close were they behind? Clearly, too close, and Maverick is many things with an aircraft, but usually his plane and crew come first. Usually. Also, Goose was normally the steady voice. It's why they were kept together, because they balanced each other out." He pointed to the tape. "On that? Not so much, in the heat of the moment."

Slider nodded slowly, thinking back to the accident. If he'd looked back, he wouldn't have seen the other plane, because their wing would have been blocking it. "Wood? I wasn't at the TACTS debrief the next day. Was it like this?" He held up his hands to demonstrate, and Hollywood showed him with both their hands the position of the A-4, their own jet, and the one behind it and below. "Oh. No wonder. Ice swung upwards, caught them at high AOA."

"Yeah," Hollywood said after a moment. "You good?"

"Getting there?"

Jardian cleared his throat and they looked at him. "That's good, and I'll take it for now. I agree with Turner about those psych evals before any of you get back in the air."

Slider rolled his eyes in mock-annoyance. "Right, because what we should be worried about right now is six of us not being in the air due to a lack of mental wellness." Then he clapped his hand over his mouth at Jardian's expression that seemed to be half-way between stern and laughing. "Oh. I really said that."

"You really did, Lieutenant."

"Sorry?"

"You were given permission to speak freely. I'm not offended."


Now...


They'd played two rounds of Crazy Eights when Ice noticed that Merlin wasn't focused on the game and was instead staring at his cards. It wasn't odd by itself, they were all a bit off with something or other on their minds, but something about the expression on his face made Ice pause and study him. "Sam?"

Merlin blinked and picked a card out, then paused when he looked up. "What?"

"You went somewhere."

Slowly, Merlin set the cards down and glanced up at Hollywood and Wolfman. Hollywood was up there, reading a book again and ignoring everything else, while Wolf slept on, oblivious. "He was vigilant last night, remember? When Mav started to crash, he manhandled him to the showers. Makes sense now, but at the time, I wondered why he was imitating Nick so well."

Ice glanced over at Slider, who shrugged. "Was on him like white on rice, wasn't he?"

"Someone had to be," Hollywood muttered from the top bunk. "And I'm still wondering if Mav snapping in Sundown's face was the reason he tried quitting. Remember? He seemed really disgusted with himself right after, like he hadn't meant to, but didn't know what to do?"

"I remember," Slider agreed. "I saw that, but wasn't sure what to make of it. None of us knew how to approach him, and then he didn't give us the chance."

Turner sighed, catching their attention. "Foster Care, Ron."

"Huh?"

"Think about it," the Corpsman told him without looking up. "From a young age, even, previously having had a parent who was distant? I can't be sure without asking him, but who was Goose in this equation? How did they act together? If he was snapping in someone's face, that loss of control mattered to him."

Merlin nodded. "That makes sense, actually. As for how they acted together? Like brothers."

"Because they were," Slider said, and Ice frowned at him again. "I know more than you do, Tom." He shook Mav awake. "Hey. How did you meet Goose?"

Mav blearily looked at him. "Sandwiches. Ninth grade. He wouldn't take no for an answer. Why?"

"Because he told me many things off-hand when we were at the academy together, but that wasn't one of 'em. Sandwiches, huh?"

Mav nodded. "I kept getting mussed up by people bigger than me, and it was an on-going thing, that I'd lose my lunch and go without... until Nick offered me half his sandwich and didn't let me refuse." He yawned, and his gaze shifted to Merlin. "We held a small graveside service, because Helen and Walt don't know yet. They went on Safari to Africa as a second honeymoon and were out of contact. Carole considered sending a telegram, but..."

"...but in the bush it might not get to them," Merlin finished. "Also a terrible way to find out." He watched as Mav's expression started to crumble, and reached out, catching one of his hands. "I know, Mav." He watched as Slider shifted slightly to grab Mav's other hand, and Ice grabbed Merlin's other and put a hand on Mav's thigh. "And we're right here."

"They're going to hate me," Mav whispered, staring at Merlin. "So much."

"No," Ice told him. "No they're not."

Turner glanced up to look at Hollywood, who looked like he wanted to lean over his RIO and look down, and shook his head. Hollywood nodded and stayed where he was, instead reaching down just far enough to tap the wall near Slider's head. Slider frowned, then reached up with his other hand and latched onto Hollywood's.

They stayed like that, offering each other mutual emotional support, for a long while. Eventually, Mav fell asleep again, but they expected that.

 

A/N: Okay. Ready for a flashback or two with Goose? Thought so. As the Order of the Green Hand would say... let's do this.
(2) I think I might have found the oddest way for someone to get to the Indian Ocean and still have a plausible reason for being there... that being that a trial of having two NIS/NCIS agents on an Aircraft Carrier was indeed tried in 1986. If you were not following Fragmentary, that's okay. I give details in dialogue... and also the first scene in here was my first drabble set for Fragmentary. Was it originally written to become so? No.


Weeks ago...


At a table in the base library, Goose was doing his own course work when he overheard a question that caused him to turn. Who was asking about Otis Redding and why? He found Wolfman, looking at a yellow notepad over Charlie's shoulder in confusion.

Charlie was staring back at him in non-recognition. "I'm trying to find answers on something. You're...?"

"Wolfman," Wolfe answered, still reading the notepad. "Who disappeared in an F-4 in November of 1965?"

"That's part of what doesn't make sense, Wolf. VF-51 wasn't even flying F-4 Phantoms at the time."

Goose blinked, startled at that revelation. He wanted to get up, go over there, and ask questions himself, but decided not to, to let Wolfman ask her instead when Charlie explained her odd evening with Maverick, including what he'd said while... Oh. That explained why he'd woken to Pete singing Sitting On the Dock of the Bay the day before, and where he had gone after volleyball so abruptly.

More details followed and Goose had to stop himself from speaking up at the detail of the leave in February of '68, because they knew that, even if Pete had forgotten the timing of it.

"The rest of this file is redacted," Wolfman said as he flipped pages in confusion. "Why would they do that?"

Charlie sighed. "If I knew the answer to that, I'd already have that promotion I'm working to get, Wolf."

Wolfman nodded. "The detail I don't get is the Otis Redding song."

Goose turned back to his books and found a blank piece of paper and started writing everything down, wanting to tell them both the why of that song. The detail about Charlie trying to get a promotion made sense, if she'd wanted to talk to Mav privately about the MiG sighting.

"Huh. That's interesting. F-8's, something classified I couldn't get into, and the squadron downed at least two North Vietnamese MiG's in '68, making them MiG Killers." She sighed. "That doesn't answer my question about what happened to Duke Mitchell, though."

"Maybe it does," Wolfman told her, waving his hand down at the service file he still had open. "And it's so secret they redacted it."

Charlie sighed again. "Maybe it does," she echoed, reading another service file. Then she frowned at the redacted pages that covered the same amount of time. "And I know just who to ask."

"Who?"

"Commander Metcalf." She continued frowning as she raised her head to look at him. "What were you actually doing in here, anyway? I know you didn't come in here to help me with this mystery."

Wolfman shrugged. "Yours is more interesting?" Charlie glared at him. "Research on radar systems, because the F-14's radar cone has blind spots and Jester keeps using it to his advantage."

Goose frowned at that. Yes, he really was, which was why he himself was reading a book on Radar. Maybe they needed to compare notes.

"Oh! Well, you can go do that, then, Wolf. Thank you for your help."

Wolfman paused. "You're sure?"

"I'm sure. I keep running into redaction roadblocks." She glanced down at the notepad, shook her head. "November 1965, when he was home for a month in '68. That is some story, there. It's like someone was daring anyone to actually look into it and discover the holes."

At that, Goose had to repress an outright laugh, because he knew who and had for twelve years. Wolfman turned right then and blinked when he held up the exact book they both needed and motioned him over. "You heard all of that?"

Goose rolled his eyes and dropped his voice to a whisper. "I've known a lot of that for twelve years, Wolf. And I hope she does take it to Viper. Join me? Maybe we can figure out the holes that Jester keeps using together."

Wolfman smiled. "Deal. Where...?"

"Quarters, doing studying of his own. That's where Wood is, right?"

"Yes. Think if we wait long enough, Slider and Sundown will join us, also looking for that book?"

"Probably."

Eventually, as predicted, they were joined by their fellow RIO's, all looking for books on Radar.


Days after that...


It was Saturday and the barracks Rec Room was quiet when Goose watched Viper enter in plain clothes, pass by them, pause, and back up only to stare at them in puzzlement. Suddenly, he had the weirdest sense of deja vu as Viper chuckled and pulled a chair over to join them by the couch. "I met Pete's social worker almost exactly like this."

"You did?"

"Yep. Couch in the break room at Fort Worth Social Services, unknowingly on the third anniversary of his mother's passing."

Viper stared at him. "What were you doing at Social Services?"

Goose glanced down at Maverick, asleep in his lap. "Our JROTC Advisor dropped us off there for his standing Friday appointment with Jenkins, only I didn't realize that, and tagged along because he was incredibly clingy after Mrs. Tomkins gave him that replacement MIA bracelet. I also didn't know, until later on, that it even was the third anniversary, and it had slipped Alan's mind on the timing."

Viper processed all of that, nodding slowly. "Right. It's the middle of the day. Why is he sleeping?"

Goose smiled, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. "Now for that, I'll need permission to speak freely, Sir."

"Really?" A nod, and Viper shrugged. "Granted."

"Charlie set him off when they had dinner."

"Huh?"

Goose took a deep breath and let it out. "I remember you visiting Fort Worth, and I know you spoke to my parents, and ran afoul of Chelsea Lowell in the process. Did you get much detail, other than the police report and what you saw when you were with us?"

Viper thought about it, then shook his head. "Not really. I was told that he was in high school early, and the decision was made, my wife included, to leave him where he was, because I wasn't prepared to have a child about to be a teenager with issues. Something about crying babies? It's been twelve years, so it's a bit fuzzy on the why of it, other than I'd be leaving Linda alone with a child who had issues, as well as my own, if I were to be deployed."

"The reason I bring it up is because Sitting on the Dock of the Bay is a trigger for Mav," Goose told him. "He hadn't done it since college, but... Nora made him play it over and over again for her. Afterwards, he'd sing that song in his sleep and if he was woken up while still singing, he would be disoriented. Especially if it happened when he was exhausted, and Mr. Finney and Miss Lowell had newborn twins, one of them with colic."

Viper froze, blinking in realization. "How does that connect to now?"

"He was singing it a couple days ago in his sleep, Sir. And then my question of how he got triggered was answered by Charlie when Wolf helped her look things up in the Base Library." Goose shrugged at Viper's quizzical expression. "I listened to them, and... if you're planning on doing something? Please do it. I already knew there were holes in the story, because we have pictures that date after '65 with Duke Mitchell in them, from Mrs. Mitchell's camera."

"It's not as simple as asking the State Department and the CIA to cooperate, Goose."

"Didn't say it was, Commander, but you asked why I convinced him to take a nap, and the answer is: I'm trying to avoid him actually having a flashback because he was triggered by accident, when he shouldn't have even been at Charlie's house to start with." Goose studied him, then sighed. "You should tell him about his father, and I realize you have orders to the contrary, but he's spent the better part of eighteen years paying the price and carrying the weight of it around on his back. You owe him that, sir."

Viper gazed at him and for a moment thought he saw an angry fifteen year old staring back at him and had to look away and take a deep breath. A song that was a trigger for flashbacks? He wanted to probe that, because Charlie had mentioned that the way Maverick had talked about it had worried her enough to do research. What Goose had said about it suddenly caught up to him... that detail from the police report about the record player and the book bag. "Oh."

"Commander?"

Viper took another deep breath and let it out slowly. Was this how Jenkins had felt when he realized the connection himself? "I have a copy of the police report. I didn't realize until right now, about the record player and the book bag... how bad are the flashbacks?"

Goose studied him with a sour expression. "You're a 'Nam vet, you tell me. How awful could a flashback be if you found your own mother deceased?"

Viper winced at his tone. "Hadn't thought of it like that."

"Most people wouldn't, unless they'd lived it intimately."

Viper nodded and let his attention fall to Maverick, sleeping from the pattern of his breathing and the movement behind his eyelids. "I came in here in the first place to talk to him, or at least try to start the conversation, but it's not as simple as that."

"Of course not, or you'd have told him on day one when we got here." Goose started rooting around in the pockets of the G-1 aviator jacket that had been on the back of the couch, smiling when he found what he was looking for, and then handed it to Viper. "He's taken to not wearing it all the time, because it's not regulation and was the cause of one too many idiots saying things they shouldn't and him reacting because they did."

Viper stared down at the adjustable silver bracelet in his hand, at the names engraved in silver and black that stared back at him in thunderous silence. It was a reminder of another one, the broken bracelet cuff in the box on Alan Jenkins's desk in Fort Worth. "Charlie is going to accept the promotion when it's offered, Lieutenant, and then I'll have someone in Washington to do the leg work when I can finally get the FOIA papers signed. That can't be you, and it couldn't be her, because she's under government contract." He handed the bracelet back to Goose, who put it back in the pocket he'd found it in.

Goose paused. "You need an actual civilian with close ties to Pete?" At Viper's nod, he smiled. "You'll have one in a few weeks, and once it's explained, Carole will do it in a heartbeat."

"I might just take you and her up on that."

"Another thing, sir?" Goose nodded downward. "It means the world to him to be here. So is he tired? Yes. I'm trying to keep him from getting so tired that he forgets what year it is and starts asking where his mother is every morning, from wearing himself out because he's so excited he can't sleep and will do nothing but study. It's how we met, actually. Imagine him shorter, because he was small even for a twelve-year-old, thin, with a black eye and bruises on his arms while wearing a JROTC uniform that was at least two sizes too big, doing school work alone instead of eating because he didn't have a lunch." Mav mumbled unintelligibly and Goose waited, then nodded. "That happened a lot early on, by the way. The lack of food and the bruising."

Viper studied him, then Maverick's sleeping face with an unreadable expression for a minute or so. "I've missed a lot here, I take it."

"You have, yes."

Wolfman entered the Rec Room, a book in his hand, and paused at the picture they must have made. Goose frowned at him, glanced at the entryway from the barracks hallway with a raised eyebrow. "Sir, I didn't realize you were going to be in the barracks today."

Viper waved him off. "This is a casual visit, Wolfe. Thank you, by the way."

"For what?"

"Research assistance that I might have to swear you to secrecy for."

Wolfman shrugged. "I don't know anything until I do, sir. I didn't even tell myself." He frowned at Goose. "How tired is he, that us talking doesn't wake him up?"

"Trying to prevent a problem from becoming an actual problem, and the answer is very. Didn't even tell yourself, huh?"

Wolfman smiled. "Nope, I was there to get a book. That's my story and I'm sticking to it."

"And how much did you hear just now, Wolf?"

"Nothing I didn't already know or suspect, Goose." Wolfman motioned to Maverick as he sat down in one of the arms chairs near the couch. "I figured he was getting triggered, somehow. I didn't know how, but I suspected, and I'd never ask him about his father, even before we were given orders not to talk about it. JROTC uniform was too big?"

Goose nodded. "He was a tiny twelve year old. They didn't have his size." He glanced at Viper. "In fact... Commander? Stand up and come here." Viper did, and Goose put his hand level with Viper's lower chest. "About there, I think. A few inches shorter than Danny Devito."

Viper looked down at where Goose's hand was, startled at just how short that actually was, even for a twelve-year-old. "When you say he wasn't eating enough, you mean it."

"I really do." Goose took his hand away and then checked his sleeping pilot again as Viper returned to his chair. "Orders not to talk about it? I didn't get those orders, Wolf. Commander?"

Viper sighed. "I can read between the lines of a fitness report and realize that more than a few incidents were incited and not his fault. You don't lose status as section leader in basic three times, for instance, without certain factors in play."

Wolfman frowned. "Three times? Normally, you only get it once and if you lose privileges, you don't get them back."

Goose smiled down at Maverick. "Well-behaved until he isn't, and really it was four. He kept them the fourth time."

Viper couldn't help the chuckle that escaped his lips at that, and Goose didn't blame him one bit.


Several Days Ago (Monday morning)...


He was in the middle of calculations, proofing his math for the fifth time that morning when the phone rang and he picked the receiver up absentmindedly. "Hello?"

A chuckle and Bart had to blink several times at the familiarity of it. "How deep are you into a project proof right now, that you answer the phone like that at work, Bart?

Bart stared down at the math he'd been running, suddenly realizing it was indeed the fifth time and he'd missed some very obvious things and saw three more. "So distracted that I needed a phone call to see what I was missing, it seems. Aren't you supposed to be on a carrier or something?"

There was a pause, and then a haggard-sounding sigh that should have been causing alarm bells, but Bart paid it no mind in the middle of setting up the math again. "Yeah. I was, and then something unexpected came up. How's things out there?"

Bart stared down at the problem, which took up an entire page and then blinked in realization and instead pulled the receiver away to stare at it before placing it back at his ear. "Things are fine, Pete. Work is fine, the kids are fine... why do you ask?"

"Needed to talk to someone about nothing," Pete answered, and for some reason that actually was setting off alarm bells. Why, Bart wasn't sure. "And I just noticed the time. Gotta go."

"All right. Pete? Call me back later. I might also need to talk about nothing, just because."

"Okay. Bart?"

"Yeah?"

"I expect you to walk me through the calculations in the proof of concept that are giving you fits when I call back."

Now it was Bart's turn to chuckle. "Oh go on, you Terror. Let me worry about it myself, won't you?" Another chuckle and then a click and he was left listening to a dial tone. Slowly, Bart hung the receiver back on it's cradle and wondered why the call had been so odd.


Now...


A soft knock came and Turner glanced at his watch, frowning and wondering who it could be at four in the morning. Slowly, carefully in an effort to make no noise, he moved to open the hatch and then stepped into the corridor. Then he blinked, startled for it wasn't the CAG checking on them, or Evan. "Who are you?"

The person standing in the corridor with him was about the same age as the aviators he'd been supervising since yesterday, dark haired, blue eyes, and wearing an NIS windbreaker over service khakis. "The group from Miramar in there?"

"Yes. That still doesn't answer who you are, what you're doing here at four in the morning, or what interest a Navy Cop would have in the six guys in there recovering from varying states of exhaustion." Turner stared at him as he sagged against the wall in what looked like relief. "Don't tell me you're also recovering from severe exhaustion."

The guy laughed. "No. Sorry, it's just been a long day or so, getting here from Dallas, and I slept on the transport." He held out a hand and Turner slowly shook it. "Agent Jaime Huntington, temporary Special Agent Afloat assigned to the Enterprise."

"Corpsman Fred Turner, Lieutenant Commander, temporarily assigned to keep watch on the bunch in there," Turner said in reply, then looked at him funny. "We already have a Special Agent Afloat, Agent Huntington."

Jaime snorted, laughing again. "Oh, I know. Met him a couple hours ago, and then I met the CAG and the skipper to get filled in and checked in, so your being here to ride herd doesn't surprise me."

"And you came here from Dallas because...?"

"Unofficially?" Turner nodded and Jaime's entire posture became more casual. In fact, very. "Because Alan Jenkins was worried enough to drive to Dallas and talk to myself and my supervisor, and he couldn't leave the area yet due to it being August and Social Services being short staffed..." Jaime shrugged.

Turner paused. "Jenkins talked your supervisor into sending you? For what?"

Jaime nodded to the hatch. "Pete. He's that worried, Corpsman. The only thing keeping him in Fort Worth was the staffing shortage and kids who need an advocate."

"Oh." Turner absorbed that information with a nod. "That'd make sense, going by what I've heard." Jaime frowned at him. "You know about the accident?" Jaime nodded, expression pained. "Imagine a case of exhaustion compounded by multiple factors, including an aerial dog fight and the kind of travel you just did."

Jaime nodded again. "Pete used to have flashbacks while asleep where he sang, followed by disorientation, if he was tired enough." Now it was Turner's turn to snort. "...which you seem to have experienced." He glanced at the hatch again. "I'm tapping you out, Corpsman. Anything I need to know?"

"You can't just-"

"Fred," Jaime said evenly, interrupting him. "How long have you been in there with them? Since Wednesday night, maybe?" Turner nodded. "All right, then. Go eat something, get some real rack time, take a shower, and then check back with us. This is what Nick Bradshaw would tell you to do, if he could. My turn, sir."

Turner handed the book he was still holding to Jaime, who stared at it for a moment. "Wolfe has interesting taste in books, and if you can pry it away from him, Hollywood has The Natural. We also have the F-14 NATOPS manual in there that Mitchell wanted."

"No, this'll do. Standard protocol for nightmares?"

"Yes. Mitchell was also running a fever, but when I checked him last an hour ago, it's gone down closer to normal." Turner watched as Jaime rolled his eyes. "That doesn't surprise you, either."

"No." Jaime nodded toward the hatch. "Anything I should watch out for?"

Turner glanced at the hatch, then nodded. "Aside from the obvious one, Kazansky and Ron were also in the dogfight and were the other half of the accident two weeks ago, Sam was Mitchell's replacement RIO and lost his own pilot when Cortell turned his wings in weeks ago, and Wolfe and Wood were shot down during the dogfight on Wednesday. Also? It's been discussed frequently and they're all recovering from the training accident, and I'm including Sam who wasn't even there, to varying degrees emotionally, and in Mitchell's case also physically."

Jaime stared at him for a minute before nodding again. "Right."

Turner carefully opened the hatch and Jaime peered in, frowning at the sleeping arrangements. "Wolfe's up there with Hollywood, and Sam, call sign Merlin, is co-sleeping with Mitchell because we figured out he's calmer that way and he traded off with Ron. Up on that bunk over there is Ron, call sign Slider, and his pilot is Kazansky on the bunk below Wolfe and Wood."

"Kazanky's call sign?"

"Iceman. If you're hungry, there's two more sandwiches in one of the bags under the table in the corner."

Jaime frowned at him. "Sandwiches?"

"The only one not to leave this bunk room all day yesterday? Mitchell. We had to feed him somehow."

"Good point." Jaime surveyed the sleeping men and then nodded. "Okay. Go on and take a breather. We'll be fine, Fred." Then his eyes narrowed. "Actually, hold on." He crossed the room and crouched in front of Maverick, who had started twitching and mumbling, and shook his shoulder.

Maverick blinked awake and then stared up at him. "What are you doing here?"


"Officially or unofficially?" Jaime smiled when Mav rolled his eyes in annoyance. "It can wait until you're more awake later, but know that you've had a Social Worker stuck in Fort Worth who wanted to be in Miramar with you for two weeks now, and upon hearing you'd been deployed from Carole, was so angry that Frank and Dorinda forced him to take the afternoon off and he drove to Dallas to see me instead. Oh," and here Jaime pulled a photo from a pocket in his jacket and handed it to Pete, who stared at it in confusion. "...and Fionn and Karen might name their kid either Nicole Evania or Evan Nicholas."

Mav stared at the ultrasound photo, blinking in disbelief. "Really?"

"Really."

"I love that."

"Thought you might." Jaime glanced at the NATOPS manual on the table in the corner. "Out of curiosity, why do you guys have a NATOPS manual in here?"

"Thrust versus weight," Mav told him as he handed the ultrasound photo back. "And I don't get to say I'm fine, remember?"

Jaime paused, then nodded. "You plan to do math."

"Might even be planning on stealing the chalk boards from the briefing rooms to do it."

At that, Turner outright chuckled. "If you do that, wait until I'm awake for it, Mitchell."

Mav grinned up at Jaime. "Will plan to, Corpsman. I really had Jenkins worrying that much?"

"You really do," Jaime corrected. "And there may or may not have been an actual need for a second Special Agent Afloat on the Enterprise, too."

Mav's snort of laughter turned abruptly into a yawn. "Later?"

"Yep." He nodded to the other bunks. "They good?"

"I think so," Mav said with another yawn, and Jaime nodded at that seal of approval which was usually incredibly hard-won from him.

Jaime waited until he was asleep again and then stood up to face Turner, who was smiling. "Is that the best you've seen from him yet?"

"Sure is," Turner answered. "Stealing all of the chalkboards?"

"We didn't call him a Tiny Terror in high school for nothing, Lieutenant Commander."

Turner paused at that, looked down at Maverick's sleeping face. Oddly enough, the implications of this one having had a nick name of Tiny Terror made so much sense.

 

A/N: Numerous outtakes and a B in Anatomy later, I bring you this update...


Yes, there IS a Social Services Conspiracy...


Monday Afternoon
Fort Worth Social Services


It was an oddly pleasant, quiet fifteen minutes, Bart reflected as he sat in the chair at reception, studying the proof again. He'd noticed four problems so far and made notes, and wondered if he shouldn't come to Social Services more often when he was frustrated with the math. Glancing up, he noticed a social worker he wasn't familiar with watching him with a curious frown, shook his head, and continued to make corrections.

"All right," a male voice interrupted him, causing Bart to sigh and look up at Frank. "First we have to give Alan no choice about taking the afternoon off, and now you're here... is that math?"

Bart paused, staring up at him. "He's not here?"

"No, Bart. He's..." Frank trailed off when the lobby door opened and in walked Alan. "Right. So much for that idea."

Bart turned and looked at Alan Jenkins, who blinked down at him in surprise, and that's when he noticed Jaime Huntington at his shoulder. "Don't you work in Dallas?"

Jaime snorted in laughter. "That's where the NIS office is, yeah. What brings you to Social Services?"

"An odd phone call," Bart told him, suddenly realizing that Jaime had a travel bag and was in plain, unadorned khakis. "Pete called to shoot the breeze about nothing, this morning. He didn't call back like he said he was going to, after whatever he was late getting to." He held up the proof he was working on. "We were going to talk math when he did."

"He was deployed," Alan explained, and was it Bart's imagination or did his posture relax minutely? "At graduation this morning. And... thank you, Bart, for giving him that normality."

Now why did that sound foreboding? Bart stood up and again studied Jaime's appearance, the set of his face, and then shifted his attention back to Alan, who hadn't really relaxed and was reminding him of a coiled spring. Frank was also watching him closely. "Okay, out with it. What's going on, that Jaime is in khakis and you're so tense I could hit a soccer ball off your head and you wouldn't even notice? Also, what graduation? Weren't Pete and Nick already deployed?" Alan flinched and Bart stared at him again, at least once piece falling into place. "Needing to talk about nothing. He was telling me, wasn't he?"

"He was," Jaime answered, and Bart spun to look deeper into the Social Services office before picking up his briefcase. "Bart?"

"If what I think happened is what actually happened, I need a copier, a pen, an envelope, and a blank piece of paper, because you won't have time to hit up an engineering professor for a packet," Bart said succinctly. "Frank, where's the copier?"

"You don't want to know anything else?"

"There are few reasons that Pete would be calling me when he's supposed to be deployed on a ship somewhere that would also cause Alan to flinch like that," Bart told him. "Copier now, explanation for this whatever it is after." Frank pointed and Bart went.

Alan watched him go, then turned to look at Jaime, who shrugged. "Were you going to talk to an Engineering professor?"

"Hadn't even crossed my mind that it might be a good idea."

"Come to think of it, why are you in khakis?" Frank suddenly wondered.

Jaime nodded to Alan. "I let him pitch a terrible idea to my Field Director. Field Director liked it, and the Enterprise needed a second NIS Agent Afloat, because of a new thing they're trying." He motioned to his clothing. "Dress code for Naval ships."

Frank leveled an incredulous expression at Alan. "You, sir, are actually taking the day off tomorrow. Go get Pete's file that I know you still have so we can review it with Mr. Huntington." He waited for Alan to be out of earshot, then looked at Jaime again. "Engineering proofs?"

"I'll take every tool I can get," Jaime said sincerely after a moment of silence. "And Pete will always be a Mathematical Tiny Terror." Someone cleared their throat and they both turned to find Dorinda watching them. "What?"

"Conference room," she said, her tone so crisp it made both of them stand at attention. "I'll send Bart there after he's done with the copier." She moved closer and pushed a big manila envelope, a piece of paper, and a pen into Jaime's hands. "And welcome to the conspiracy, Agent Huntington."

"Conspiracy?"

Her lips quirked just so. "Oh, we'll be making Alan take time off. It's just a matter of how and when, his wife is in on it, and now so are you and Bart Tomkins."

~*~*~*~​

To: Carole Bradshaw - NAS Miramar
From: NIS Special Agent Afloat #2 Jaime Huntington - USS Enterprise

1: Enroute to the Big-E. How did this happen? Ask Jenkins.
2: There is a Social Services Conspiracy. You are now also a part of it. [Dorinda's Work Number]
3: Bart got a phone call on Monday morning from Pete, to apparently "talk about nothing"... and I ended up with copies of engineering proofs for our Tiny Terror that I expect will have excessive notes on them when Bart gets it back. [Bart's Phone Number]
4: For some reason, the NIS Agent I met at Pearl while waiting for the next transport heard which carrier I was headed to and commented that he was sorry in advance about bad air conditioning. That will probably make sense eventually.
5: Fionn and Karen have something to tell you, that they both decided on Monday. [Karen's Phone Number, Fionn's Work Number]

~*~*~*~​

Friday
NAS Miramar
Metcalf Residence


Entering the kitchen for dinner, Viper had to pause and count heads with a frown on his lips... they had one more than usual. "Linda, did you let one of our daughters dye her hair?"

Linda turned from the salad she was putting the finishing touches on, smiled at him, and nodded to the table. "No, that's Nora. She's starting the school year with us."

Viper nodded slowly, absorbing the fact that Nora Mitchell's eleven year old namesake was watching him with a blank expression. "Oh. Where are her parents?"

"They were going to visit Carole and Bradley before getting back on the road," Linda said with a smile, then pulled a scrap of paper our of her apron pocket and handed it to him. "And it seems that you have a phone call to make."

"I do?" He unfolded the paper, only to stare at what was written there. Social Services Conspiracy? Really?

To: Mike Metcalf
From: Noah Finney

Chels might not want to interfere, but you will. Call Dorinda at Fort Worth Social Services for Conspiracy Details: [Work Phone Number]
Also, they made Alan Jenkins take the afternoon off on Monday only for Alan to NOT take the afternoon off and drive to the Dallas NIS Field Office instead. This somehow resulted in Jaime Huntington being assigned as Special Agent Afloat #2 on the Enterprise, and he caught a transport out on Monday night from Fort Worth NAS.
Walt and Helen are flying in on Sunday and should probably be met by you, a Casualty Officer, and Nora. Carole should NOT have to tell them.

"Nora," he said after a silence that lasted too long. "We're going to be meeting Walt and Helen's plane on Sunday." And suddenly he was glad that it was her daughter and NOT Miss Lowell herself sitting at his kitchen table...


USS Enterprise


Having long since taken his windbreaker off and draped it over the back of the chair, Jaime had settled down into reading the odd but amusing fishing novel. He wondered idly after an hour or so of silence, what his wife would have told his mother of his whereabouts... if she'd asked already, that is.

[ "Oh, he was called out on a case involving a deceased Navy Lieutenant, out in San Diego..." ]

Jaime winced internally at the thought of Charlotte having to make excuses, but on the whole it wasn't entirely a lie... he just didn't happen to actually be in San Diego on an investigation. Shoving aside the thoughts of his anti-war mother, Jaime glanced around the room just in time to catch Slider getting down off his bunk and muttering to himself about ship-board bathrooms. He put on his deck shoes and ambled out of the room, still muttering.

Jaime chuckled to himself and returned to the novel, only to pause at the sudden echoing screech overhead. How did they sleep through that? For that matter, how was Pete, whom he knew to wake disturbed to colicky infants, sleeping through that?

He was still studying the ceiling when a worn, unfamiliar voice spoke up. "That was the catapult."

Frowning, Jaime glanced over to see that Kazansky was sitting up and looking for his own deck shoes. "It is?"

"Yes, and it's always that noisy. You get used to it after a while."

That made sense, really. "Good to know." He smirked when the man finally did find his deck shoes and then stood up. "Do you think the CAG would mind if we borrowed a couple chalkboards?"

Kazansky frowned at him. "Probably not, if we asked first. Why?"

"I'll explain it only once, to all of you later. Go on." Kazansky looked like he wanted to protest, but Jaime shook his head. "I don't like repeating myself ad nauseam, Lieutenant."

"Who are you?"

"That'll also have to wait." Jaime glared at him until the pilot shrugged and left the bunk room. He lapsed into reading again, only to be interrupted again by a sudden gasp and a soft bang from the upper bunk, followed by a miserable "ow." Frowning again, Jaime looked up to see that Wolfe was blinking and craning his neck to look back at his pilot.

"Rick?"

"Only scared myself, Wolf," Hollywood told him, rubbing his head. "Guess that answers the question of how many times I can scare myself awake... seriously, do you think I should actually tell Jester to jump scare in training more often?"

"If it bothers you that much? Yes."

"That fifth MiG nearly got us both killed," Hollywood reminded him, which caused Jaime to startle. Five MiGs? "Even with that extra reading you did." Something made him frown. "What?"

"Great minds, you know? Goose was also in need of that same book... and he was right there while I was helping Charlie, listening to us try to puzzle out the story with too many holes. He told me after that he knew a bit of it already."

Hollywood propped himself up to look beyond his RIO, only to stare back at Jaime, who was openly watching them. "Who are you?"

Wolfman froze and turned his head to look down. "Uh..."

"And this is why I'd rather wait until all of you have eaten and things and back here again," Jaime muttered, then held up the book. "Wolfe? This is odd but entertaining."

"Thank you?"

He motioned to the still-sleeping pair. "Think you could take Sam with you?"

They climbed down off their bunk and Hollywood slowly got Maverick upright to a sitting position, to lean against him, despite some sleepy protests, and Wolfman shook Merlin's shoulder. Merlin came awake with a gasp and stared up at him blankly. "New guy thinks you need to get up."

Merlin nodded and eyed Jaime for a minute before getting up off the bunk carefully. "I want to ask, but you look irritated."

"I am," Jaime admitted, motioning to Mav. "Because Jenkins was right to be upset."

Wolfman stared at him. "You..."

"It can wait, Wolfe."

"Bogies like fireflies," Mav suddenly mumbled, drawing their attention. "Squadron in Vietnam... eight out of eighteen aircraft... Ten men. Fly jets long enough, it'll happen again... Stayed in it, saved three planes. You gotta let him go..."

Jaime frowned at that, at the wording that clearly was not Pete's own and took in the expression on Hollywood's face that clearly stated the man was unhappy. "That wasn't Pete talking."

"No," Hollywood said after a moment of silence as he eased Mav back down again. "That was Viper, and I have no idea if it was the same conversation or two different ones."

"More likely two different ones," Wolfman pointed out, then looked at Jaime. "You-"

Jaime shook his head and motioned to the door, heedless of that fact that three men were staring at him. He shrugged. "Go on, will you? Turner warned me about nightmares and flashbacks, and Pete knows I'm here. Go."

"You're sure?" Merlin asked, concern evident in his tone and written across his features.

"Yes, and I expect an explanation for who Viper is when you get back."

~*~*~*~*~*~​

The guy he returned to find wasn't the Corpsman they'd had the day before, but a different one, staring at something in his hand, Slider observed as he shut the hatch and approached him quietly. Mav was still asleep, but mumbling to himself indistinctly, and Slider was prepared to have to wake him quickly again as he rested a careful hand on the unknown guy's shoulder. The man jumped and looked up at him, blinking. "Sorry."

"Don't be. I shouldn't have been so distracted I didn't hear you." He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then looked up again to find him frowning. "What?"

"Is that a bracelet?"

The guy nodded and handed it to him carefully. "I'm not used to seeing Pete without it. Found it in one of his coat pockets when I had to get up and move around."

Slider examined the silver adjustable bracelet, taking in the fact that he knew exactly what one of these was. Normally, they were a cuff, but not always... "Both his parents?"

The guy nodded again. "This one was to replace the one that had belonged to his mother after it got broken."

Slider looked from the bracelet, to Mav, and back again. "Never without it?"

"No."

Slowly, Slider sat down on the bed next to Mav and made him move over a little. "Right or left?"

"Left... you don't have to do that."

Slider shook his head as he secured the bracelet to Mav's left wrist, paying attention to the mumbling. "Wish he'd be more distinct again, so we'd know what's going on in that head of his."

Silence and then the guy sighed. "He was, earlier, but I'm waiting for everyone else to get back in here, to explain who Viper is. Bogies like fireflies?"

Slider sighed. "Oh. Of course he was. In the middle of all this, of course he is, and it's understandable that he'd still be trying to process what Viper told him." He glanced at the guy. "What's your name?"

"Jaime."

Slider held out a hand. "Ron. Have a call sign?"

"Not an aviator or a pilot," Jaime told him as he shook his hand. "Though my mother used to call me her little demon. I don't think that counts."

At that, Slider allowed himself to laugh and felt some of the tension leave his shoulders. "No, it probably doesn't... and Viper would be a commanding officer in Miramar. He runs the Top Gun program right now, and his name is Mike Metcalf." He watched Jaime's eyes narrow and then he snorted to himself. "What?"

"Waiting on your bunkmates before I say anything," Jaime said crisply and glanced over at one of the lockers in the corner again, then looked down at the book in his hands. The hatch opened just then, admitting Ice, who frowned at them before sitting down on his own bunk and crossing his arms. Shortly, the other three followed him in and they also sat down on bunks, Merlin taking a seat beside Ice. Jaime chuckled suddenly and glanced their way, then looked at Slider. "He always look that stiff, or am I special?"

Slider looked over at his pilot with a raised eyebrow and Ice shrugged. "It's been a bad few weeks, really. We're all out of sorts."

"True," Jaime agreed. He studied each man in turn before settling on Wolfman, who stared back at him openly. "Before I tell my side of things, I need some answers. Who is Charlie and how did Sitting On the Dock of the Bay come up?"

"Charlotte Blackwood, civilian TagRep instructor," Slider explained. "Blonde. Smart as a whip. Wolf, did she say how?"

"They were listening to older music, I think," Wolfman answered. "Something about the way he talked about his mother in relation to the song caused her to want to look things up." Jaime shook his head and frowned at Mav. "The weird thing is, after that, Goose had him taking naps in the middle of the day to 'prevent a problem from becoming a bigger one.'"

Jaime nodded slowly as he pulled a small notepad out of his pocket and started making notes with a heavy sigh. "So... a trigger incident, the accident, a commanding officer that is also his Godfather putting his foot in his mouth at least once, if not twice, and no medical leave."

"Also tried to quit the Navy," Slider offered. "And until the transport, no idea when or if he did sleep."

"Also another jetwash incident," Merlin said, and Jaime glanced over at him with raised eyebrows. "Which was also a near mid-air collision. Wait, Viper is his Godfather?"

Jaime nodded again. "I know that because Metcalf showed up in Fort Worth in '73 to check on Pete and Nora, only to find out he was three years late." He paused, looking at Maverick, and Slider glanced down again in question to find Mav's eyes were open, but glassy and distant, and suddenly he sniffled. "Pete?"

"Ryan told me about his book, Aaron," Mav said, his voice sounding incredibly young and lost. "Can we read it?"

Jaime held up a hand to keep them all quiet and then leaned forward. "What's the book?"

"In the Heat of the Night."

Jaime chuckled. "And when did he tell you about it, huh?"

"Earlier, in the hospital cafeteria. Waiting for you."

Jaime nodded and held up the novel he was still holding. "Don't have a copy of that. How about this one?"

"'Kay."

Jaime glanced at Slider, then at the rest of them. "You mind?"

"Not at all," Ice finally said. "Who is Aaron?"

"My father-in-law." And with that, Jaime turned back to chapter one and began to read. He was well into the hilarity of the Rogue River Fishing War when he looked up again and nodded, for Mav had gone back to sleep. "Figures that Ryan would have been the one reading In The Heat of the Night, otherwise it made no sense for Aaron to use it for story hour..."

"Are you going to start explaining who you are?" Ice asked, almost whining. "And what that was? He sounded young... very young, actually."

"Me? I've known Pete since his freshman year of high school, Kazansky. My name is Jaime Huntington, and I'm an NIS agent with the Dallas NIS Field Office. As to what that just was... he was seven and his mother was in the hospital with a really bad infection to the point where she was in the ICU." He made a face, then shook his head and motioned to Mav. "Lost and scared and with total strangers right then, and his father had been declared MIA. So... yes. Very young." Silence reigned until Jaime sighed. "He wasn't like this on Wednesday, was he?"

"No," Hollywood spoke up, and Ron winced at how brittle he sounded. "Before he crashed after medical and debrief, Mav was conversational but tired."

"Also a walking bruise with a headache again," Slider reminded him.

"Also that."

Jaime frowned again. "A what with a what?"

"Ejection is hard on the body," Slider explained and pulled down the blanket to get access to Mav's shirt, which he pulled up to show Jaime the bruises that Maverick still had about his ribs, particularly on the right side. "And Turner reminded us that launching off the deck isn't easy either while injured, never mind pulling G's in combat." Jaime nodded in understanding and Slider pulled the shirt down again. "For days after the accident, he was so stiff it hurt to watch him move around."

Jaime sat back in the chair again, then looked over at Wolfman, considering him for a minute of thoughtful silence. "What book did Nick need, when you were going over things with Charlie?"

Wolfman rolled his eyes. "We all needed that book, actually, and it was one on Radar, because Jester is keen on using blind spots." Slider chuckled suddenly, for now he knew the when of it. "Right? We had a study session, right after."

"I remember," Slider said, then looked at Hollywood. "Maybe we should have discussed the blind spot thing in class?"

"Maybe." Hollywood turned to study his RIO, who was looking at his hands and suddenly working on his cuticles. "All right, out with it, whatever it is, Leo. Now, even if you didn't even tell yourself."

"How..." Wolfman paused and took in the glare he was being favored with and sighed. "All right, fine. I overheard more than I said I did and Viper didn't want me telling anyone when he was trying to do a thing with what Charlie gave him about Mav's father. Not that we had much, mind you. We didn't."

"You called it an insult to swiss cheese," Merlin reminded him.

"It is." Wolfman looked at Jaime again, not really surprised that he seemed incredibly exasperated. "I didn't really understand it at the time, but Goose laid into Viper once he had permission to speak freely. Something about colic and that song being a trigger, and... who are Miss Lowell and Mr. Finney?"

Jaime motioned to Mav. "That's something you get to ask him when he's awake enough to care and explain himself, and you will want him to, instead of me. He explains it better. As to the colic... did he have singing flashbacks at all in the middle of this?" He looked from face to face, then nodded. "Imagine that, but with newborn babies, one of them with Colic."

Ice held up a hand. "You'd get a kid with temporary amnesia who wanted his mother, right?"

"Exactly." Jaime fell silent and glanced at the table in the corner, then grabbed the small bottle of ibuprofen and considered it momentarily before handing it to Slider. "Also a kid who didn't understand the difference between that and Morphine."

Slider frowned at the bottle in his hand, glanced at their sleeping aviator, and back again. "That explains so much. Sam had to do some convincing to get Mav to take some, last night."

"I learned from the best," Merlin told him with a smirk, then studied Jaime's posture momentarily. "All right. Give Ron the book. We're going for a walk to settle you down."

"I'm fine," Jaime protested, only to wince when they all glared at him. "Oh."

"You found out on Monday, right?" Merlin asked and Jaime nodded. "Then come on. Mav'll be fine, but you need to let off some steam, and he's suggestible."

"He is?"

"Very. I think we set off some flashbacks without realizing, and you just did, in fact."

Jaime slowly handed the book to Ron. "And given that you all have had no time to process anything until now... yeah. Let's go. Ron?"

"Yes?"

Jaime looked down at their sleeping aviator. "Don't hesitate to read to him if he comes to again like that, where he's out of it and mistaking you for someone else. Loves being read to."

Slider nodded, then motioned to the door. "Go get some air with Sam. You had breakfast yourself, yet?"

"Too upset to even think about it."

Merlin glanced at his watch as he followed Jaime out. "Night patrol should be over by now. Let's go catch Willard and Simkin in the mess."

Slider waited until the hatch closed again before he looked at Ice, who had moved to claim the chair and put a hand to Mav's forehead. "Still warm?"

"The Ibuprofen's probably worn off," Ice concurred. "And I'm not sure if we should get him up now, or wait another hour. He didn't wake us up all night, but Jaime mentioned that he'd had to wake him when he tapped Turner out... also something about chalkboards that makes no sense right now, but I can imagine Mav being a tiny terror in high school. He's a terror now." He glanced up to see Wolfman frowning. "What?"

Wolfman sighed and then took a deep breath and let it out. "When I caught Viper and Goose talking? Rick, stand up for me. I need to show you practically." Hollywood obliged, then frowned when Wolfman put a hand about level with his belt or a bit higher. "Goose said four feet tall when he was twelve, and that the JROTC uniform he was wearing at the time was a few sizes too big, because he hadn't been eating nearly enough, before."

Ice glanced down at Mav again, nodding. "That doesn't surprise me, for some reason." Under his hand, Mav startled awake with a whimper and Ice brushed at his hair. "Hey. You up for some more Ibuprofen?"

"Don't want any," Mav hissed at him, then blinked as he looked around. "Where did Jaime go? He is here, right? I didn't imagine that?"

"No, Mav," Slider assured him. "You didn't imagine that. Sam took him for a walk and to probably eat something, as he has had less time than we have to adjust."

Mav nodded, glared up at Ice as he opened the Ibuprofen bottle and shook two pills out of it. "Did Jaime tell you that Al showed up at Dallas NIS, mad because Carole told him we'd been deployed at Graduation? Who called him before that? And I really don't want any, Ice."

"Humor us," Slider suggested as Ice grabbed the 7-UP off the table in the corner. He set the book down on the deck and coaxed Mav into a sitting position. "And Wolf did. You were repeating a phone number on the chopper, but you probably don't remember that."

Mav shook his head and grudgingly accepted the two pills. "No, I don't." He stared at the pills in his hand, then blinked in surprise at the bracelet. "How did... Did Jaime go through my coat pockets?"

Ron laughed at that. "He did, yes. Said he couldn't sit still, and he'd never seen you without it."

Mav quickly took the pills and chased it with the 7-UP that Ice handed to him, before Ice caught his wrist to look at the bracelet with a frown. "It's not much."

"No," Ice said after a minute of silence. "But maybe it's enough, if that makes any sense."

~*~*~*~*~​

In the Mess, Merlin navigated Jaime to a table where four guys in flight suits were seated and told him to sit and eat. Willard looked at him funny and motioned to Jaime as he started to eat. "Seems we got a second Special Agent Afloat sometime yesterday, all the way from Dallas. How was patrol?"

Simkin studied Jaime for a minute, then shrugged. "Boring, and we weren't the ones with MiGs on Radar in our sector."

"But the stars were pretty," Pampers reminded him with a grin. "Even if you'd need a telescope to see Halley, now that it's way past Perihelion."

"I didn't realize how hungry I was," Jaime spoke up, glancing at Merlin. "Knew I was angry and frustrated. Who wouldn't be?"

"Well, you found out two weeks after the fact," Merlin reminded him. "I didn't know until after action on Wednesday, and they were told yesterday when Ron sent Willard and Simkin to the CAG because he's really not able to discuss it yet with anyone."

Jaime froze, then looked around the table. "Oh."

Merlin nodded. "Just so."

"He really sent you to the CAG instead of telling you himself?"

"He really did," Simkin replied ruefully.

Jaime glanced at Merlin again while he chewed and then swallowed. "I just realized that I didn't explain anything for how I found out to you, Sam."

Merlin shrugged. "I heard what you said when you tapped Turner out this morning, and I was equally surprised at how coherent Mav was at seeing you. He's right, by the way: most coherent he's been since Wednesday night. Do you want to go explain to the CAG why we might be needing Chalkboards now, or wait until later?"

"If you heard all of that, why didn't you speak up?"

"There wasn't a need."

"Chalkboards?" Judge asked through a yawn.

"Yes," Merlin affirmed with a smile, while Jaime rolled his eyes and finished his breakfast. "And it might be tied to needing a NATOPS manual, but we'd need Mav actually awake for that to explain. Preferably without a fever." He counted off on his fingers. "NATOPS. Chalkboard. Thrust vs Weight."

Jaime stood up. "Guess we should go talk to the CAG, then."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~​

Jardian was just outside of CIC when they caught up to him, and he frowned at Jaime before looking at Merlin. "Wells, I see you've met our second, temporary, Special Agent Afloat."

"I have, sir, and in the interest of holding up our orders to keep Mav out of trouble when he actually does wake up, can we set up two chalkboards in the common area near our quarters?"

Jardian paused at that and looked sharply at Huntington. "Chalkboards?"

"Pete's planning on stealing them," Huntington explained. "To do math. You know, when he actually wakes up for more than five minutes at a time and is coherent."

"Right..." Jardian thought about it, about how much sense it would probably made for Maverick to go on a math spree, and then nodded his ascent. "All right, Wells. Two chalkboards."

"Thank you, sir."

"And Huntington?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Williams was looking for you, to discuss a case or two."

Huntington nodded. "We'll go find him next, sir." He paused, glanced back down the corridor in contemplation... "After we go back to the mess."

Jardian frowned and glanced at Merlin, who shrugged in confusion.